F 

1435 

L4 


BANCROFT 
LIBRARY 

<• 

THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


o^2^^,/ 

VESTIGES  OF  TJJTMAYAS, 


OK, 


Facts  tending  to  prove  that  Communications  and  Intimate  Relations  must  have 
existed,  in  very  remote  times,  between  the  inhabitants  of 


M  A  Y  A  B 


AND   THOSE   OF 


.A.SI.A. 


BY 

AUGUSTUS /LE  PLONGEON,  M.  D., 

Member  of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society  of  Worcester,  Mass.,  of  the  California 

Academy  of  Sciences,  and  several  other  Scientific  Societies.   Author  of  various 

Essays  and  Scientific  Works. 


NEW  YORK : 

JOHN  POLHEMUS,  PRINTER  AND  STATIONER, 
102  NASSAU  STREET. 

1881. 


VESTIGES  OF  THE  MAYAS, 

OR, 

Facts  tending  to  prove  that  Communications  and  Intimate  Relations  must  have 
existed,  in  very  remote  times,  between  the  inhabitants  of 


MAYAB 


AND   THOSE   OF 


BY 

AUGUSTUSES  PLONGEON,  M.  D., 

Member  of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society  of  Worcester,  Mass.,  of  the  California 

Academy  of  Sciences,  and  several  other  Scientific  Societies.   Author  of  various 

Essays  and  Scientific  Works. 


NEW  YORK : 

JOHN  POLHEMUS,  PRINTER  AND  STATIONER, 
102  NASSAU  STREET. 

1881. 


TO 


MR.  PIERRE  LORILLARD. 

Who  deserves  the  thanks  of  the  students  of  American  Archaeology  more 
than  you,  for  the  interest  manifested  in  the  explorations  of  the  ruined  monu- 
ments of  Central  America,  handiwork  of  the  races  that  inhabited  this  con- 
tinent in  remote  ages,  and  the  material  help  given  by  you  to  Foreign  and 
American  explorers  in  that  field  of  investigations  ? 

Accept,  then,  my  personal  thanks,  with  the  dedication  of  this  small 
Essay.  It  forms  part  of  the  result  of  many  years'  study  and  hardships 
among  the  ruined  cities  of  the  Incas,  in  Peru,  and  of  the  Mayas  in  Yucatan. 

Yours  very  respectfully, 

AUGUSTUS  LE  PLONGEON,  M.  D. 

NEW  YORK,  December  15,  1881. 


Entered  according  to  an  Act  of  Congress,  in  December,  1881, 

BY  AUGUSTUS  LE  PLONGEON, 
In  the  Office  of  the  LIBRARIAN  OF  CONGRESS  in  Washington,  D.  C. 


.VESTIGES  OF  THE  MAYAS, 

YUCATAN  is  the  peninsula  which  divides  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  from  the  Caribbean  Sea.  It  is  comprised  between 
the  17°  30'  and  21°  50',  of  latitude  north,  and  the.  88° 
and  91°  of  longitude  west  from  the  Greenwich  meridian. 

The  whole  peninsula  is  of  fossiferous  limestone  for- 
mation. Elevated  a  few  feet  only  above  the  sea,  on  the 
coasts,  it  gradually  raises  toward  the  interior,  to  a  maxi- 
mum height  of  above  70  feet.  A  bird's-eye  view,  from  a 
lofty  building,  impresses  the  beholder  with  the  idea  that 
he  is  looking  on  an  immense  sea  of  verdure,  having  the 
horizon  for  boundary  ;  without  a  hill,  not  even  a  hillock, 
to  break  the  monotony  of  the  landscape.  Here  and  there 
clusters  of  palm  trees,  or  artificial  mounds,  covered  with 
shrubs,  loom  above  the  green  dead-level  as  islets,  over 
that  expanse  of  green  foliage,  affording  a  momentary 
relief  to  the  eyes  growing  tired  of  so  much  sameness. 

About  fifty  miles  from  the  northwestern  coast  begins  a 
low,  narrow  range  of  hills,  whose  highest  point  is  not 
much  above  500  feet.  It  traverses  the  peninsula  in  a 
direction  a  little  south  from  east,  commencing  a  few 
miles  north  from  the  ruined  city  of  Uxmal,  and  termi- 
nating some  distance  from  the  eastern  coast,  opposite  to 
the  magnificent  bay  of  Ascension. 

Lately  I  have  noticed  that  some  veins  of  red  oxide  of 
iron  exist  among  these  hills — quarries  of  marble  must 
also  be  found  there  ;  since  the  sculptured  ornaments 
that  adorn  the  facade  of  all  the  monuments  at  Uxmal  are 
of  that  stone.  To-day  the  inhabitants  of  Yucatan  are 
even  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  these  minerals  in  their 
country,  and  ocher  to  paint,  and  marble  slabs  to  floor 


6 

their  houses,  are  imported  from  abroad.  I  have  also 
discovered  veins  of  good  lithographic  stones  that  could 
be  worked  at  comparatively  little  expense. 

The  surface  of  the  country  is  undulating ;  its  stony 
waves  recall  forcibly  to  the  mind  the  heavy  swell  of  mid- 
ocean.  It  seems  as  if,  in  times  long  gone  by,  the  soil  was 
upheaved,  en  masse,  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  by  vol- 
canic forces.  This  upheaval  must  have  taken  place 
many  centuries  ago,  since  isolated  columns  of  Katuns 
1m.  60c.  square,  erected  at  least  6,000  years  ago,  stand 
yet  in  the  same  perpendicular  position,  as  at  the  time 
when  another  stone  was  added  to  those  already  piled  up, 
to  indicate  a  lapse  of  twenty  years  in  the  life  of  the 
nation. 

It  is,  indeed,  a  remarkable  fact,  that  whilst  the  sur- 
rounding countries — Mexico,  Guatemala,  Cuba  and  the 
other  West  India  Islands — are  frequently  convulsed  by 
earthquakes, the  peninsula  of  Yucatan  is  entirely  free  from 
these  awe-inspiring  convulsions  of  mother  earth.  This  im- 
munity may  be  attributed,  in  my  opinion,  to  the  innumer- 
able and  extensive  caves  with  which  the  whole  country 
is  entirely  honeycombed ;  and  the  large  number  of  im- 
mense natural  wells,  called  Senotes,  that  are  to  be  found 
everywhere.  These  caves  and  senotes  afford  an  outlet 
for  the  escape  of  the  gases  generated  in  the  super- 
ficial strata  of  the  earth.  These,  finding  no  resistance  to 
their  passage,  follow,  harmlessly,  these  vents  without 
producing  on  the  surface  any  of  those  terrible  commotions 
that  fill  the  heart  of  man  and  beast  alike  with  fright 
and  disma}'. 

Some  of  those  caves  are  said  to  be  very  extensive — 
None,  however,  has  been  thoroughly  explored.  I  have 
visited  a  few,  certainly  extremely  beautiful,  adorned  as 
they  are  with  brilliant  stalactites  depending  from  their 
roofs,  that  seem  as  if  supported  by  the  stalagmites  that 
must  have  required  ages  to  be  formed  gradually  from  the 
floor  into  the  massive  columns,  as  we  see  them  to-day. 

In  all  the  caves  are  to  be  found  either  inexhaustible 


springs  of  clear,  pure,  cold  water,  or  streams  inhabited 
by  shrimps  and  fishes.  No  one  can  tell  whence  they 
come  or  where  they  go.  All  currents  of  water  are  sub- 
terraneous. Not  a  river  is  to  be  found  on  the  surface  ; 
not  even  the  smallest  of  streamlets,  where  the  birds  of 
the  air,  or  the  wild  beasts  of  the  forests,  can  allay 
their  thirst  during  the  dry  season.  The  plants,  if  there 
are  no  chinks  or  crevices  in  the  stony  soil  through  which 
their  roots  can  penetrate  and  seek  the  life-sustaining 
fluid  below,  wither  and  die.  It  is  a  curious  sight  that 
presented  by  the  roots  of  the  trees,  growing  on  the 
precipituous  brinks  of  the  senates,  in  their  search  for 
water.  They  go  down  and  down,  even  a  hundred  feet, 
until  they  reach  the  liquid  surface,  from  where  they 
suck  up  the  fluid  to  aliment  the  body  of  the  tree.  They 
seem  like  many  cables  and  ropes  stretched  all  round  the 
sides  of  the  well ;  and,  in  fact,  serves  as  such  to  some  of 
the  most  daring  of  the  natives,  to  ascend  or  descend  to 
enjoy  a  refreshing  bath. 

These  senates  are  immense  circular  holes,  the  diameter 
of  which  varies  from  50  to  500  feet,  with  perpendicular 
walls  from  50  to  150  feet  deep.  These  holes  might  be 
supposed  to  have  served  as  ducts  for  the  subterranean 
gases  at  the  time  of  the  upheaval  of  the  country.  Now 
they  generally  contain  water.  In  some,  the  current  is 
easily  noticeable  ;  many  are  completely  dry ;  whilst 
others  contain  thermal  mineral  water,  emitting  at  times 
strong  sulphurous  odor  and  vapor. 

Many  strange  stories  are  told  by  the  aborigines  con- 
cerning the  properties  possessed  by  the  water  in  certain 
senotes,  and  the  strange  phenomena  that  takes  place  in 
others.  In  one,  for  example,  you  are  warned  to  ap- 
proach the  water  walking  backward,  and  to  breathe 
very  softly,  otherwise  it  becomes  turbid  and  unfit  for 
drinking  until  it  has  settled  and  become  clear  again.  In 
another  you  are  told  not  to  speak  above  a  whisper,  for 
if  any  one  raises  the  voice  the  tranquil  surface  of  the 
water  immediately  becomes  agitated,  and  soon  assumes 


8 

the  appearance  of  boiling ;  even  its  level  raises.  These 
and  many  other  things  are  told  in  connection  with 
the'  caves  and  senotes ;  and  we  find  them  mentioned  in 
the  writings  of  the  chroniclers  and  historians  from  the 
time  of  the  Spanish  conquest. 

No  lakes  exist  on  the  surface,  at  least  within  the  ter- 
ritories occupied  by  the  white  men.  Some  small  sheets 
of  water,  called  aguadas,  may  be  found  here  and  there, 
and  are  fed  by  the  underground  current ;  but  they  are 
very  rare.  There  are  three  or  four  near  the  ruins  of  the 
ancient  city  of  Mayapan  :  probably  its  inhabitants 
found  in  them  an  abundant  supply  of  water.  Following 
all  the  same  direction,  they  are,  as  some  suppose,  no 
doubt  with  reason,  the  outbreaks  of  a  subterranean 
stream  that  comes  also  to  the  surface  in  the  senote  of 
MucuycTie.  A  mile  or  so  from  Uxmal  is  another  aguada  ; 
but  judging  from  the  great  number  of  artificial  reser- 
voirs, built  on  the  terraces  and  in  the  courts  of  all  the 
monuments,  it  would  seem  as  if  the  people  there  de- 
pended more  on  the  clouds  for  their  provision  of  water 
than  on  the  wells  and  senotes.  Yet  I  feel  confident  that 
one  of  these  must  exist  under  the  building  known  as 
the  Governor's  house;  having  discovered  in  its  imme- 
diate vicinity  the  entrance — now  closed — of  a  cave  from 
which  a  cool  current  of  air  is  continually  issuing  •  at 
times  with  great  force. 

I  have  been  assured  by  Indians  from  the  village  of  Che- 
max,  who  pretend  to  know  that  part  of  the  country  well, 
that,  at  a  distance  of  about  fifty  miles  from  the  city  of 
Valladolid,  the  actual  largest  settlement,  on  the  eastern 
frontier,  in  the  territories  occupied  by  the  SANTA  CKUZ 
Indians,  there  exists,  near  the  ruins  of  Kaba^  two  exten- 
sive sheets  of  water,  from  where,  in  years  gone  by,  the  in- 
habitants of  Valladolid  procured  abundant  supply  of  ex- 
cellent fishes.  These  ruins  of  Kaba,  said  to  be  very  inter- 
esting, have  never  been  visited  by  any  foreigner  ;  nor  are 
they  likely  to  be  for  many  years  to  come,  on  account  of 
the  imminent  danger  of  falling  into  the  hands  of  those 


9 

of  Santa  Cruz — that,  since  1847,  wage  war  to  the  knife 
against  the  Yucatecans. 

On  the  coast,  the  sea  penetrating  in  the  lowlands  have 
formed  sloughs  and  lakes,  on  the  shores  of  which  thickets 
of  mangroves  grow,  with  tropical  luxuriancy.  Interming- 
ling their  crooked  roots,  they  form  such  a  barrier  as  to 
make  landing  well  nigh  impossible.  These  small  lakes, 
subject  to  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tides,  are  the  resort  of 
innumerable  sea  birds  and  water  fowls  of  all  sizes  and 
descriptions  ;  from  the  snipe  to  the  crane,  and  brightly 
colored  flamingos,  from  the  screeching  sea  gulls  to  the 
serious  looking  pelican.  They  are  attracted  to  these 
lakes  by  the  solitude  of  the  forests  of  mangroves  that 
afford  them  excellent  shelter,  where  to  build  their  nests, 
and  find  protection  from  the  storms  that,  at  certain  season 
of  the  year,  sweep  with  untold  violence  along  the  coast : 
and  because  with  ease  they  can  procure  an  abundant 
supply  of  food,  these  waters  being  inhabited  by  myriads 
of  fishes,  as  they  come  to  bask  on  the  surface  which  is 
seldom  ruffled  even  when  the  tempest  rages  outside. 

Notwithstanding  the  want  of  superficial  water,  the  air 
is  always  charged  with  moisture;  the  consequence  being 
a  most  equable  temperature  all  the  year  round,  and  an 
extreme  luxuriance  of  all  vegetation.  The  climate  is 
mild  and  comparatively  healthy  for  a  country  situated 
within  the  tropics,  and  bathed  by  the  waters  of  the  Mex- 
ican Gulf.  This  mildness  and  healthiness  may  be  attri- 
buted to  the  sea  breezes  that  constantly  pass  over  the 
peninsula,  carrying  the  malaria  and  noxious  gases  that 
have  not  been  absorbed  by  the  forests,  which  cover  the 
main  portion  of  the  land ;  and  to  the  great  abundance  of 
oxygen  exuded  by  the  plants  in  return.  This  excessive 
moisture  and  the  decomposition  of  dead  vegetable  matter 
is  the  cause  of  the  intermittent  fevers  that  prevail  in  all 
parts  of  the  peninsula,  where  the  yellow  fever,  under  a 
mild  form  generally,  is  also  endemic.  When  it  appears, 
as  this  year,  in  an  epidemic  form,  the  natives  themselves 
enjoy  no  immunity  from  its  ravages,  and  fall  victims  to 
it  as  well  as  unacclimated  foreigners. 


10 

These  epidemics,  those  of  smallpox  and  other  diseases 
that  at  times  make  their  appearance  in  Yucatan,  gener- 
ally present  themselves  after  the  rainy  season,  particu- 
larly if  the  rains  have  been  excessive.  The  country  being 
extremely  flac,  the  drainage  is  necessarily  very  bad  :  and 
in  places  like  Merida,  for  example,  where  a  crowding  of 
population  exists,  and  the  cleanliness  of  the  streets  is 
utterly  disregarded  by  the  proper  authorities,  the  de- 
composition of  vegetable  and  animal  matter  is  very  large; 
and  the  miasmas  generated,  being  carried  with  the  vapors 
arising  from  the  constant  evaporation  of  stagnant  waters, 
are  the  origin  of  those  scourges  that  decimate  the  inhabi- 
tants. Yucatan,  isolated  as  it  is,  its  small  territory  nearly 
surrounded  by  water,  ought  to  be,  if  the  laws  of  health 
were  properly  enforced,  one  of  the  most  healthy  countries 
on  the  earth;  where,  as  in  the  Island  of  Cozumel,  people 
should  only  die  of  old  age  or  accident.  The  thermometer 
varies  but  little,  averaging  about  80°  Far.  True,  it  rises  in 
the  months  of  July  and  August  as  high  as  96°  in  the  shade, 
but  it  seldom  falls  below  65°  in  the  month  of  December. 
In  the  dry  season,  from  January  to  June,  the  trees  be- 
come divested  of  their  leaves,  that  fall  more  particularly 
in  March  and  April.  Then  the  sun,  returning  from  the 
south  on  its  way  to  the  north,  passes  over  the  land  und 
darts  its  scorching  perpendicular  rays  on  it,  causing 
every  living  creature  to  thirst  for  a  drop  of  cool  water; 
the  heat  being  increased  by  the  burning  of  those  parts  of 
the  forests  that  have  been  cut  down  to  prepare  fields  for 
cultivation. 

In  the  portion  of  the  peninsula,  about  one-third  of 
it,  that  still  remains  in  possession  of  the  white,  the 
Santa  Cruz  Indians  holding,  since  1847,  the  richest  and 
most  fertile,  two- thirds,  the  soil  is  entirely  stony.  The 
arable  loam,  a  few  inches  in  thickness,  is  the  result 
of  the  detriti  of  the  stones,  mixed  with  the  remainder 
of  the  decomposition  of  vegetable  matter.  In  certain 
districts,  towards  the  eastern  and  southern  parts  of 
the  State,  patches  of  red  clay  form  excellent  ground 


11 

for  the  cultivation  of  the  sugar  cane  and  Yuca  root. 
From  this  an  excellent  starch  is  obtained  in  large  quan- 
tities. Withal,  the  soil  is  of  astonishing  fertility,  and 
trees,  even,  are  met  with  of  large  size,  whose  roots 
run  on  the  surface  of  the  bare  stone,  penetrating  the 
chinks  and  crevices  only  in  search  of  moisture.  Often 
times  I  have  seen  them  growing  from  the  center  of  slabs, 
the  seed  having  fallen  in  a  hole  that  happened  to  be  bored 
in  them.  In  the  month  of  May  the  whole  country  seems 
parched  and  dry.  Not  a  leaf,  not  a  bud.  The  branches 
and  boughs  are  naked,  and  covered  with  a  thick  coating 
of  gray  dust.  Nothing  to  intercept  the  sight  in  the 
thicket  but  the  bare  trunks  and  branches,  with  the  withes 
entwining  them.  With  the  first  days  of  June  come  the 
first  refreshing  showers.  As  if  a  magic  wand  had  been 
waved  over  the  land,  the  view  changes — life  springs  every- 
where. In  the  short  space  of  a  few  days  the  forests  have 
resumed  their  holiday  attire  ;  buds  appear  and  the  leaves 
shoot ;  the  flowers  bloom  sending  forth  their  fragrance, 
that  wafted  by  the  breeze  perfume  the  air  far  and  near. 
The  birds  sing  their  best  songs  of  joy  ;  the  insects  chirp 
their  shrillest  notes  ;  butterflies  of  gorgeous  colors  flutter 
in  clouds  in  every  direction  in  search  of  the  nectar  con- 
tained in  the  cups  of  the  newly-opened  blossom,  and  dis- 
pute it  with  the  brilliant  humming-birds.  All  creation 
rejoices  because  a  few  tears  of  mother  Nature  have 
brought  joy  and  happiness  to  all  living  beings,  from  the 
smallest  blade  of  grass  to  the  majestic  palm  ;  from  the 
creeping  worm  to  man,  who  proudly  titles  himself  the 
lord  of  creation. 

Yucatan  has  no  rich  metallic  mines,  but  its  wealth  of 
vegetable  productions  is  immense.  Large  forests  of 
mahogany,  cedar,  zapotillo  trees  cover  vast  extents  of 
land  in  the  eastern  and  southern  portions  of  the  peninsula; 
whilst  patches  of  logwood  and  mora,  many  miles  in 
length,  grow  near  the  coast.  The  wood  is  to-day  cut 
down  and  exported  by  the  Indians  of  Santa  Cruz  through 
their  agents  at  Belize.  Coffee,  vanilla,  tobacco,  india- 


12 

rubber,  rosins  of  various  kinds,  copal  in  particular,  all  of 
good  quality,  abound  in  the  country,  but  are  not  culti- 
vated on  account  of  its  unsettled  state  ;  the  Indians  re- 
taining possession  of  the  most  fertile  territories  where 
these  rich  products  are  found. 

The  whites  have  been  reduced  to  the  culture  of  the 
Hennequen  plant  (agave  sisalensis)  in  order  to  subsist. 
It  is  the  only  article  of  commerce  that  grows  well  on  the 
stony  soil  to  which  they  are  now  confined.  The  fila- 
ment obtained  from  the  plant,  and  the  objects  manu- 
factured from  it  constitute  the  principal  article  of  export; 
in  fact  the  only  source  of  wealth  of  the  Yucatecans. 
As  the  filament  is  now  much  in  demand  for  the  fabri- 
cation of  cordage  in  the  United  States  and  Europe,  many 
of  the  landowners  have  ceased  to  plant  maize,  although 
the  staple  article  of  food  in  all  classes,  to  convert  their 
land  into  hennequen  fields.  The  plant  thrives  well  on 
stony  soil,  requires  no  water  and  but  little  care.  The 
natural  consequence  of  planting  the  whole  country  with 
hennequen  has  been  so  great  a  deficiency  in  the  maize 
crop,  that  this  year  not  enough  was  grown  for  the  con- 
sumption, and  people  in  the  northeastern  district  were 
beginning  to  suffer  from  the  want  of  it,  when  some  mer- 
chants of  Merida  imported  large  quantities  from  New 
York.  They,  of  course,  sold  it  at  advanced  prices,  much 
to  the  detriment  of  the  poorer  classes.  Some  sugar  is 
also  cultivated  in  the  southern  and  eastern  districts, 
but  not  in  sufficient  quantities  even  for  the  consump- 
tion ;  and  not  a  little  is  imported  from  Habana. 

The  population  of  the  country,  about  250,000  souls 
all  told,  are  mostly  Indians  and  mixed  blood.  In 
fact,  very  few  families  can  be  found  of  pure  Caucasian 
race.  Notwithstanding  the  great  admixture  of  different 
races,  a  careful  observer  can  readily  distinguish  yet 
four  prominent  ones,  very  noticeable  by  their  features, 
their  stature,  the  conformation  of  their  body.  The 
dwarfish  race  is  certainly  easily  distinguishable  from 
the  descendants  of  the  giants  that  tradition  says  once 


13 

upon  a  time  existed  in  the  country,  whose  bones  are 
yet  found,  and  whose  portraits  are  painted  on  the  walls 
of  Chaacmol's  funeral  chamber  at  Chichen-Itza.  The 
almond-eyed,  flat-nosed  Siamese  race  of  Copan  is  not  to 
be  mistaken  for  the  long,  big-nosed,  flat-headed  remnant 
of  the  Nahualt  from  Palenque,  who  are  said  to  have  in- 
vaded the  country  some  time  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era;  and  whose  advent  among  the  Mayas,  whose 
civilization  they  appear  to  have  destroyed,  has  been  com- 
memorated by  calling  the  west,  the  region  whence  they 
came,  according  to  Landa,  Cogolludo  and  other  his- 
torians, NOHNIAL,  a  word  which  means  literally  big  noses 
for  our  daughters  ;  whilst  the  coming  of  the  bearded  men 
from  the  east,  better  looking  than  those  of  the  west,  if 
we  are  to  give  credit  to  the  bas-relief  where  their  portraits 
are  to  be  seen,  was  called  GENIAL — ornaments  for  our 
daughters. 

If  we  are  to  judge  by  the  great  number  of  ruined  cities 
scattered  everywhere  through  the  forests  of  the  penin- 
sula ;  by  the  architectural  beauty  of  the  monuments  still 
extant,  the  specimens  of  their  artistic  attainments  in 
drawing  and  sculpture  which  have  reached  us  in  the 
bas-reliefs,  statues  and  mural  paintings  of  Uxmal  and 
Chichen-Itza ;  by  their  knowledge  in  mathematical  and 
astronomical  sciences,  as  manifested  in  the  construction 
of  the  gnomon  found  by  me  in  the  ruins  of  Mayapan ; 
by  the  complexity  of  the  grammatical  form  and  syntaxis 
of  their  language,  still  spoken  to-day  by  the  majority  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Yucatan ;  by  their  mode  of  express- 
ing their  thoughts  on  paper,  made  from  the  bark  of  cer- 
tain trees,  with  alphabetical  and  phonetical  characters, 
we  must  of  necessity  believe  that,  at  some  time  or  other, 
the  country  was  not  only  densely  populated,  but  that 
the  inhabitants  had  reached  a  high  degree  of  civilization. 
To-day  we  can  conceive  of  very  few  of  their  attainments 
by  the  scanty  remains  of  their  handiwork,  as  they  have 
come  to  us  injured  by  the  hand  of  time,  and,  more  so 
yet,  by  that  of  man,  during  the  wars,  the  invasions,  the 


14 

social  and  religions  convulsions  which  have  taken  place 
among  these  people,  as  among  all  other  nations.  Only 
the  opening  of  the  buildings  which  contain  the  libraries 
of  their  learned  men,  and  the  reading  of  their  works, 
could  solve  the  mystery,  and  cause  us  to  know  how 
much  they  had  advanced  in  the  discovery  and  explana- 
tion of  Nature' s  arcana  ;  how  much  they  knew  of  man- 
kind's past  history,  and  of  the  nations  with  which  they 
held  intercourse.  Let  us  hope  that  the  day  may  yet 
come  when  the  Mexican  government  will  grant  to  me 
the  requisite  permission,  in  order  that  I  may  bring  forth, 
from  the  edifices  where  they  are  hidden,  the  precious 
volumes,  without  opposition  from  the  owners  of  the  pro- 
perty where  the  monuments  exist.  Until  then  we  must 
content  ourselves  with  the  study  of  the  inscriptions 
carved  on  the  walls,  and  becoming  acquainted  with  rhe 
history  of  their  builders,  and  continue  to  conjecture 
what  knowledge  they  possessed  in  order  to  be  able  to 
rear  such  enduring  structures,  besides  the  art  of  design- 
ing the  plans  and  ornaments,  and  the  manner  of  carving 
them  pn  stone. 

Let  us  place  ourselves  in  the  position  of  the  archaeolo- 
gists of  thousands  of  years  to  come,  examining  the  ruins 
of  our  great  cities,  finding  still  on  foot  some  of  the 
stronger  built  palaces  and  public  buildings,  with  some 
rare  specimens  of  the  arts,  sciences,  industry  of  our 
days,  the  minor  edifices  having  disappeared,  gnawed  by 
the  steely  tooth  of  time,  together  with  the  many  pro- 
ducts of  our  industry,  the  machines  of  all  kinds,  creation 
of  man's  ingenuity,  and  his  powerful  helpmates.  What 
would  they  know  of  the  attainments  and  the  progress 
in  mechanics  of  our  days  ?  Would  they  be  able  to  form 
a  complete  idea  of  our  civilization,  and  of  the  knowledge 
of  our  scientific  men,  without  the  help  of  the  volumes 
contained  in  our  public  libraries,  and  maybe  of  some  one 
able  to  interpret  them?  Well,  it  seems  to  me  that  we 
stand  in  exactly  the  same  position  concerning  the  civil- 
ization of  those  who  have  preceded  us  five  or  ten  thou- 


15 

sand  years  ago  on  this  continent, as  these  future  archaeol- 
ogists may  stand  regarding  our  civilization  five  or  ten 
thousand  years  hence. 

It  is  a  fact,  recorded  by  all  historians  of  the  Conquest, 
that  when  for  the  first  time  in  1517  the  Spaniards  came 
in  sight  of  the  lands  called  by  them  Yucatan,  they  were 
surprised  to  see  on  the  coast  many  monuments  well 
built  of  stone  :  and  to  find  the  country  strewn  with  large 
cities  and  beautiful  monuments  that  recalled  to  their 
memory  the  best  of  Spain.  They  were  no  less  astonished 
to  meet  in  the  inhabitants,  not  naked  savages,  but  a 
civilized  people,  possessed  of  polite  and  pleasant  man- 
ners, dressed  in  white  cotton  habiliments,  navigating 
large  boats  propelled  by  sails,  traveling  on  well  con- 
structed roads  and  causeways  that,  in  point  of  beauty 
and  solidity,  could  compare  advantageously  with  similar 
Roman  structures  in  Spain,  Italy,  England  or  France. 

I  will  not  describe  here  the  majestic  monuments  raised 
by  the  Mayas.  Mrs.  Le  Plongeon,  in  her  letters  to  the 
New  York  World,  has  given  of  those  of  UXMAL,  ARE 
and  MAYAPAN,  the  only  correct  description  ever  pub- 
lished. My  object  at  present  is  to  relate  some  of  the 
curious  facts  revealed  to  us  by  their  weather-beaten  and 
crumbling  walls,  and  show  how  erroneous  is  the  opinion 
of  some  European  scientists,  who  think  it  not  worth 
while  to  give  a  moment  of  their  precious  time  to  the 
study  of  American  archaeology,  because  say  they :  JVo 
relations  have  ever  been  found  to  have  existed  between 
the  monuments  and  civilizations  of  the  inhabitants  of 
this  continent  and  those  of  the  old  world.  On  what 
ground  they  hazard  such  an  opinion  it  is  difficult  to  sur- 
mise, since  to  my  knowledge  the  ancient  ruined  cities  of 
Yucatan,  until  lately,  have  never  been  thoroughly,  much 
less  scientifically,  explored.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
other  monumental  ruins  of  the  whole  of  Central 
America. 

When  Mrs.  Le  Plongeon  and  myself  landed  at  Pro- 
gresso,  in  1873,  we  thought  that  because  we  had  read  the 


16 

works  of  Stephens,  Waldeck,  Norman,  Fredeichstal ; 
carefully  examined  the  few  photographic  views  made  by 
Mr.  Charnay  of  some  of  the  monuments,  we  knew  all 
about  them.  Alas  !  vain  presumption  !  When  in  pres- 
ence of  the  antique  shrines  and  palaces  of  the  Mayas,  we 
soon  saw  how  mistaken  we  had  been ;  how  little  those 
writers  had  seen  of  the  monuments  they  had  pretended 
to  describe :  that  tlie  work  of  studying  them  systemat- 
ically was  not  even  begun;  and  that  many  years  of  close 
observation  and  patient  labor  would  be  necessary  in  order 
to  dispel  the  mysteries  which  hang  over  them,  and  to 
discover  the  hidden  meaning  of  their  ornaments  and  in- 
scriptions. To  this  difficult  task  we  resolved  to  dedicate 
our  time,  and  to  concentrate  our  efforts  to  find  a  solution, 
if  possible,  to  the  enigma. 

We  began  our  work  by  taking  photographs  of  all  the 
monuments  in  their  tout  ensemble,  and  in  all  their  de- 
tails, as  much  as  practicable.  Next,  we  surveyed  them 
carefully ;  made  accurate  plans  of  them  in  order  to  be 
able  to  comprehend  by  the  disposition  of  their  different 
parts,  for  what  possible  use  they  were  erected  ; 
taking,  as  a  starting  point,  that  the  human  mind  and 
human  inclinations  and  wants  are  the  same  in  all  times, 
in  all  countries,  in  all  races  when  civilized  and  cultured. 
We  next  carefully  examined  what  connection  the  orna- 
ments bore  to  each  other,  and  tried  to  understand  the 
meaning  of  the  designs.  At  first  the  maze  of  these  de- 
signs seemed  a  very  difficult  riddle  to  solve.  Yet,  we 
believed  that  if  a  human  intelligence  had  devised  it,  an- 
other human  intelligence  would  certainly  be  able  to 
unravel  it.  It  was  not,  however,  until  we  had  nearly 
completed  the  tracing  and  study  of  the  mural  paintings, 
still  extant  in  the  funeral  chamber  of  Chaacmol,  or  room 
built  on  the  top  of  the  eastern  wall  of  the  gymnasium  at 
Chichen-Itza,  at  its  southern  end,  that  Stephens  mistook 
for  a  shrine  dedicated  to  the  god  of  the  players  at  ball, 
that  a  glimmer  of  light  began  to  dawn  upon  us.  In  trac- 
ing the  figure  of  Chaacmol  in  battle,  I  remarked  that  the 


17 

shield  worn  by  him  had  painted  on  it  round  green  spots, 
and  was  exactly  like  the  ornaments  placed  between  tiger 
and  tiger  on  the  entablature  of  the  same  monument.  I 
naturally  concluded  that  the  monument  had  been  raised 
to  the  memory  of  the  warrior  bearing  the  shield ;  that 
the  tigers  represented  his  totem,  and  that  CTiaacmol  or 
Balam  maya  words  for  spotted  tiger  or  leopard,  was  his 
name.  I  then  remembered  that  at  about  one  hundred 
yards  in  the  thicket  from  the  edifice,  in  an  easterly  direc- 
tion, a  few  days  before,  I  had  noticed  the  ruins  of  a 
remarkable  mound  of  rather  small  dimensions.  It  was 
ornamented  with  slabs  engraved  with  the  images  of 
spotted  tigers,  eating  human  hearts,  forming  magnificent 
bas-reliefs,  conserving  yet  traces  of  the  colors  in  which 
it  was  formerly  painted.  I  repaired  to  the  place.  Doubts 
were  no  longer  possible.  The  same  round  dots,  forming 
the  spots  of  their  skins,  were  present  here  as  on  the  shield 
of  the  warrior  in  battle,  and  that  on  the  entablature  of 
the  building.  On  examining  carefully  the  ground  around 
the  mound,  I  soon  stumbled  upon  what  seemed  to  be  a  half 
buried  statue.  On  clearing  the  debris  we  found  a  statue 
in  the  round,  representing  a  wounded  tiger  reclining  on 
'his  right  side.  Three  holes  in  the  back  indicated  the 
places  where  he  received  his  wounds.  It  was  headless. 
A  few  feet  further,  I  found  a  human  head  with  the  eyes 
half  closed,  as  those  of  a  dying  person.  When  placed 
on  the  neck  of  the  tiger  it  fitted  exactly.  I  propped  it 
with  sticks  to  keep  it  in  place.  So  arranged,  it  recalled 
vividly  the  Chaldean  and  Egyptian  deities  having  heads 
of  human  beings  and  bodies  of  animals.  The  next  object 
that  called  my  attention  was  another  slab  on  which  was 
represented  in  bas-relief  a  dying  warrior,  reclining  on  his 
back,  the  head  was  thrown  entirely  backwards.  His  left 
arm  was  placed  across  his  chest,  the  left  hand  resting  on 
the  right  shoulder,  exactly  in  the  same  position  which 
the  Egyptians  were  wont,  at  times,  to  give  to  the  mum- 
mies of  some  of  their  eminent  men.  From  his  mouth 
was  seen  escaping  two  thin,  narrow  flames — the  spirit  of 


18 

the  dying  man  abandoning  the  body  with  the  last  warm 
breath. 

These  and  many  other  sculptures  caused  me  to  suspect 
that  this  monument  had  been  the  mausoleum  raised  to 
the  memory  of  the  warrior  with  the  shield  covered  with 
the  round  dots.  Next  to  the  slabs  engraved  with  the 
image  of  tigers  was  another,  representing  an  ara  militaris 
(a  bird  of  the  parrot  specie,  very  large  and  of  brilliant 
plumage  of  various  colors).  I  took  it  for  the  totem  of  his 
wife,  MOO,  macaw  ;  and  so  it  proved  to  be  when  later  I 
was  able  to  interpret  their  ideographic  writings. 
Kinicli-Kakmd  after  her  death  obtained  the  honors  of 
the  apotheosis  ;  had  temples  raised  to  her  memory,  and 
was  worshipped  at  Izamal  up  to  the  time  of  the  Spanish 
conquest,  according  to  Landa,  Cogolludo  and  Lizana. 

Satisfied  that  I  had  found  the  tomb  of  a  great  warrior 
among  the  Mayas,  I  resolved  to  make  an  excavation,  not- 
withstanding I  had  no  tools  or  implements  proper  for 
such  work.  After  two  months  of  hard  toil,  after  pene- 
trating through  three  level  floors  painted  with  yellow 
ochre,  at  last  a  large  stone  urn  came  in  sight.  It  was 
opened  in  presence  of  Colonel  D.  Daniel  Traconis.  It 
contained  a  small  heap  of  grayish  dust  over  which  lay. 
the  cover  of  a  terra  cotta  pot,  also  painted  yellow ;  a  few 
small  ornaments  of  macre  that  crumbled  to  dust  on  being 
touched,  and  a  large  ball  of  jade,  with  a  hole  pierced  in 
the  middle.  This  ball  had  at  one  time  been  highly  pol- 
ished, but  for  some  cause  or  other  the  polish  had 
disappeared  from  one  side.  Near,  and  lower  than  the 
urn,  was  discovered  the  head  of  the  colossal  statue,  to- 
day the  best,  or  one  of  the  best  pieces,  in  the  National 
Museum  of  Mexico,  having  been  carried  thither  on  board 
of  the  gunboat  Libertad,  without  my  consent,  and  with- 
out any  renumeration  having  even  been  offered  by  the 
Mexican  government  for  my  labor,  my  time  and  the 
money  spent  in  the  discovery.  Close  to  the  chest  of  the 
statue  was  another  stone  urn  much  larger  than  the  first. 
On  being  uncovered  it  was  found  to  contain  a  large  quan- 


19 

tity  of  reddish  substance  and  some  jade  ornaments.  On 
closely  examining  this  substance  I  pronounced  it  organic 
matter  that  had  been  subjected  to  a  very  great  heat  in  an 
open  vessel.  (A  chemical  anylysis  of  some  of  it  by  Pro- 
fessor Thompson,  of  Worcester,  Mass.,  at  the  request  of 
Mr.  Stephen  Salisbury,  Jr.,  confirmed  my  opinion). 
From  the  position  of  the  urn  I  made  up  my  mind  that 
its  contents  were  the  heart  and  viscera  of  the  personage 
represented  by  the  statue  ;  while  the  dust  found  in  the 
first  urn  must  have  been  the  residue  of  his  brains. 

Landa  tells  us  .that  it  was  the  custom,  even  at  the  time 
of  the  Spanish  conquest,  when  a  person  of  eminence  died 
to  make  images  of  stone,  or  terra  cotta  or  wood  in  the 
semblance  of  the  deceased,  whose  ashes  were  placed  in  a 
hollow  made  on  the  back  of  the  head  for  the  purpose. 
Feeling  sorry  for  having  thus  disturbed  the  remains  of 
Chaacmol,  so  carefully  concealed  by  his  friends  and  rel- 
atives many  centuries  ago  ;  in  order  to  save  them  from 
further  desecration,  I  burned  the  greater  part  reserving 
only  a  small  quantity  for  future  analysis.  This  finding 
of  the  heart  and  brains  of  that  chieftain,  afforded  an  ex- 
planation, if  any  was  needed,  of  one  of  the  scenes  more 
artistically  portrayed  in  the  mural  paintings  of  his  funeral 
chamber.  In  this  scene  which  is  painted  immediately 
over  the  entrance  of  the  chamber,  where  is  also  a  life-size 
representation  of  his  corpse  prepared  for  cremation,  the 
dead  warrior  is  pictured  stretched  on  the  ground,  his 
back  resting  on  a  large  stone  placed  for  the  purpose  of 
raising  the  body  and  keeping  open  the  cut  made  across  it, 
under  the  ribs,  for  the  extraction  of  the  heart  and  other 
parts  it  was  customary  to  preserve.  These  are  seen  in 
the  hands  of  his  children.  At  the  feet  of  the  statue  were 
found  a  number  of  beautiful  arrowheads  of  flint  and 
chalcedony  ;  also  beads  that  formed  part  of  his  necklace. 
These,  to-day  petrified,  seemed  to  have  been  originally  of 
bone  or  ivory.  They  were  wrought  to  figure  shells  of 
periwinkles.  Surrounding  the  slab  on  which  the  figure 
rests  was  a  large  quantity  of  dried  blood.  This  fact 


might  lead  us  to  suppose  that  slaves  were  sacrificed  at 
his  funeral,  as  Herodotus  tells  us  it  was  customary  with 
the  Scythians,  and  we  know  it  was  with  the  Romans  and 
other  nations  of  the  old  world,  and  the  Incas  in  Peru. 
Yet  not  a  bone  or  any  other  human  remains  were  found 
in  the  mausoleum. 

The  statue  forms  a  single  piece  with  the  slab  on  which 
it  reclines,  as  if  about  to  rise  on  his  elbows,  the  legs 
being  drawn  up  so  that  the  feet  rest  flat  on  the  slab.  I 
consider  this  attitude  given  to  the  statues  of  dead  per- 
sonages that  I  have  discovered  in  Chichen,  where  they 
are  still,  to  be  symbolical  of  their  belief  in  reincarnation. 
They,  in  common  with  the  Egyptians,  the  Hindoos,  and 
other  nations  of  antiquity,  held  that  the  spirit  of  man 
after  being  made  to  suffer  for  its  shortcomings  during  its 
mundane  life,  would  enjoy  happiness  for  a  time  propor- 
tionate to  its  good  deeds,  then  return  to  ea/rth,  animate 
the  body  and  live  again  a  material  existence.  The  Mayas, 
however,  destroying  the  body  by  lire,  made  statues  in  the 
semblance  of  the  deceased,  so  that,  being  indestructible 
the  spirit  might  find  and  animate  them  on  its  return  to 
earth.  The  present  aborigines  have  the  same  belief. 
Even  to-day,  they  never  fail  to  prepare  the  Tianal  pixan, 
the  food  for  the  spirits,  which  they  place  in  secluded 
spots  in  the  forests  or  fields,  every  year,  in  the  month  of 
November.  These  statues  also  hold  an  urn  between  their 
hands.  This  fact  again  recalls  to  the  mind  the  Egpptian 
custom  of  placing  an  urn  in  the  coffins  with  the  mum- 
mies, to  indicate  that  the  spirit  of  the  deceased  had  been 
judged  and  found  righteous. 

The  ornament  hanging  on  the  breast  of  ChaacmoPs 
effigy,  from  a  ribbon  tied  with  a  peculiar  knot  behind 
his  neck,  is  simply  a  badge  of  his  rank  ;  the  same  is  seen 
on  the  breast  of  many  other  personages  in  the  bas-reliefs 
and  mural  paintings.  A  similar  mark  of  authority  is 
yet  in  usage  in  Burmah. 

I  have  tarried  so  long  on  the  description  of  my  first 
important  discovery  because  I  desired  to  explain  the 


21 

method  followed  by  me  in  the  investigation  of  these 
monuments,  to  show  that  the  result  of  our  labors  are  by 
no  means  the  work  of  imagination — as  some  have  been  so 
kind  a  short  time  ago  as  to  intimate — but  of  careful  and 
patient  analysis  and  comparison  ;  also,  in  order,  from  the 
start,  to  call  your  attention  to  the  similarity  of  certain 
customs  in  the  funeral  rites  that  the  Mayas  seem  to  have 
possessed  in  common  with  other  nations  of  the  old  world  : 
and  lastly,  because  my  friend,  Dr.  Jesus  Sanchez,  Profes- 
sor of  Archaeology  in  the  National  Museum  of  Mexico, 
ignoring  altogether  the  circumstances  accompanying  the 
discovery  of  the  statue,  has  published  in  the  Anales  del 
Museo  National,  a  long  dissertation — full  of  erudition, 
certainly—  to  prove  that  the  statue  discovered  by  me  at 
Chichen-Itza,  was  a  representation  of  the  God  of  the 
natural  production  of  the  earth,  and  that  the  name 
given  by  me  was  altogether  arbitrary;  and  ,also,  because 
an  article  has  appeared  in  the  North  American  Review 
for  October,  1880,  signed  by  Mr.  Charnay,  in  which  the 
author,  after  re-producing  Mr.  Sanchez's  writing,  pro- 
nounces ex  cathedra  and  de  perse,  but  without  assigning 
any  reason  for  his  opinion,  that  the  statue  is  the  effigy 
of  the  god  of  wine — the  Mexican  Bacchus — without  tell- 
ing us  which  of  them,  for  there  were  two. 

Having  been  obliged  to  abandon  the  statue  in  the 
forests — well  wrapped  in  oilcloth,  and  sheltered  under  a 
hut  of  palm  leaves,  constructed  by  Mrs.  Le  Plongeon 
and  myself — my  men  having  been  disarmed  by  order  of 
General  Palomino,  then  commander-in-chief  of  the  fed- 
eral forces  in  Yucatan,  in  consequence  of  a  revolution- 
ary movement  against  Dr.  Sebastian  Lerdo  de  Tejada 
and  in  favor  of  General  Diaz — I  went  to  Uxmal  to  con- 
tinue my  researches  among  its  ruined  temples  and 
palaces.  There  I  took  many  photographs,  surveyed  the 
monuments,  and,  for  the  first  time,  found  the  remnants 
of  the  phallic  worship  of  the  Nahualts.  Its  symbols 
are  not  to  be  seen  in  Chichen — the  city  of  the  holy  and 
learned  men,  Itzaes — but  are  frequently  met  with  in  the 


22 

northern  parts  of  the  peninsula,  and  all  the  regions 
where  the  Nahualt  influence  predominated. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  very  ancient  times  the 
same  customs  and  religious  worship  existed  in  Uxmal 
and  Chichen,  since  these  two  cities  were  founded  by  the 
same  family,  that  of  CAN  (serpent),  whose  name  is  writ- 
ten on  all  the  monuments  in  both  places.  CAN  and  the 
members  of  his  family  worshipped  Deity  under  the 
symbol  of  the  mastodon's  head.  At  Chichen  a  tableau 
of  said  worship  forms  the  ornament  of  the  building,  des- 
ignated in  the  work  of  Stephens,  "  Travels  in  Yucatan," 
as  IGLESIA  ;  being,  in  fact,  the  north  wing  of  the  palace 
and  museum.  This  is  the  reason  why  the  mastodon's 
head  forms  so  prominent  a  feature  in  all  the  ornaments 
of  the  edifices  built  by  them.  They  also  worshipped  the 
sun  and  fire,  which  they  represented  by  the  same  hie- 
roglyph used  by  the  Egyptians  for  the  sun  O.  In  this 
worship  of  the  fire  they  resembled  the  Chaldeans  and 
Hindoos,  but  differed  from  the  Egyptians,  who  had  no 
veneration  for  this  element.  They  regarded  it  merely 
as  an  animal  that  devoured  all  things  within  its  reach, 
and  died  with  all  it  had  swallowed,  when  replete  and 
satisfied. 

From  certain  inscriptions  arid  pictures — in  which  the 
Cans  are  represented  crawling  on  all  fours  like  dogs — 
sculptured  on  the  fagade  of  their  house  of  worship,  it 
would  appear  that  their  religion  of  the  mastodon  was  re- 
placed by  that  of  the  reciprocal  forces  of  nature,  imported 
in  the  country  by  the  big-nosed  invaders,  the  Nahualts 
coming  from  the  west.  These  destroyed  Chichen,  and  es- 
tablished their  capital  at  Uxmal.  There  they  erected  in 
all  the  courts  of  the  palaces,  and  on  the  platforms  of  the 
temples  the  symbols  of  their  religion,  taking  care,  how- 
ever, not  to  interfere  with  the  worship  of  the  sun  and 
fire,  that  seems  to  have  been  the  most  popular. 

Bancroft  in  his  work,  "  The  Native  Races  of  the 
Pacific  States,"  Vol.  IV.,  page  277,  remarks  :  "  That  the 
"  scarcity  of  idols  among  the  Maya  antiquities  must  be 


"  regarded  as  extraordinary.  That  the  people  of  Yuca- 
u  tan  were  idolators  there  is  no  possible  doubt,  and  in 
"  connection  with  the  magnificent  shrines  and  temples 
"  erected  by  them,  and  rivalling  or  excelling  the  grand 
"  obelisks  of  Copan,  might  naturally  be  sought  for,  but 
' 'in  view  of  the  facts  it  must  be  concluded  that  the 
"  Maya  idols  were  very  small,  and  that  sucli  as  escaped 
"  the  fatal  iconoclasms  of  the  Spanish  ecclesiastics  were 
"  buried  by  the  natives  as  the  only  means  of  preventing 
' '  their  desecration. ' ' 

That  the  people  who  inhabited  the  country  at  the 
time  of  the  Spanish  conquest  had  a  multiplicity  of  gods 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  primitive  form  of  worship, 
with  time  and  by  the  effect  of  invasions  from  outside, 
had  disappeared,  and  been  replaced  by  that  of  their  great 
men  and  women,  who  were  deified  and  had  temples  raised 
to  their  memory,  as  we  see,  for  example,  in  the  case  of 
Moo,  wife  and  sister  of  Chaacmol,  whose  shrine  was  built 
on  the  high  mound  on  the  north  side  of  the  large  square  in 
the  city  of  Izamal .  There  pilgrims  flocked  from  all  parts  of 
the  country  to  listen  to  the  oracles  delivered  by  the  mouth 
of  her  priests  ;  and  see  the  goddess  come  down  from  the 
clouds  every  day,  at  mid-day,  under  the  form  of  a  resplen- 
dent macaw,  and  light  the  fire  that  was  to  consume  the 
offerings  deposited  on  her  altar  ;  even  at  the  time  of  the 
conquest,  according  to  the  chroniclers,  Chaacmol  himself 
seems  to  have  become  the  god  of  war,  that  always  ap- 
peared in  the  midst  of  the  battle,  fighting  on  the  side 
of  his  followers,  surrounded  with  flames.  Kukulcan, 
"  the  culture"  hero  of  the  Mayas,  the  winged  serpent, 
worshipped  by  the  Mexicans  as  the  god  Guetzalcoalt, 
and  by  the  Quiches  as  Cucumatz,  if  not  the  father  him- 
self of  Chaacmol,  CAN,  at  least  one  of  his  ancestors. 

The  friends  and  followers  of  that  prince  may  have 
worshipped  him  after  his  death,  and  the  following  gene- 
rations, seeing  the  representation  of  his  totems  (serpent) 
covered  with  feathers,  on  the  walls  of  his  palaces,  and  of 
the  sanctuaries  built  by  him  to  the  deity,  called  him 


24 

Kukulcan,  the  winged  serpent :  when,  in  fact,  the  artists 
who  carved  his  emblems  on  the  walls  covered  them  with 
the  cloaks  he  and  all  the  men  in  authority  and  the  high 
priests  wore  on  ceremonial  occasions — feathered  vest- 
ments— as  we  learned  from  the  study  of  mural  paintings. 

In  the  temples  and  palaces  of  the  ancient  Mayas  I  have 
never  seen  anything  that  I  could  in  truth  take  for  idols. 
'I  have  seen  many  symbols,  such  as  double-headed 
tigers,  corresponding  to  the  double-headed  lions  of  the 
Egyptians,  emblems  of  the  sun.  I  have  seen  the  repre- 
sentation of  people  kneeling  in  a  peculiar  manner,  with 
their  right  hand  resting  on  the  left  shoulder — sign  of 
respect  among  the  Mayas  as  among  the  inhabitants  of 
Egypt — in  the  act  of  worshiping  the  mastodon  head;  but 
I  doubt  if  this  can  be  said  to  be  idol  worship.  Can 
and  his  family  were  probably  monotheists.  The  masses 
of  the  people,  however,  may  have  placed  the  different 
natural  phenomena  under  the  direct  supervision  of 
special  imaginary  beings,  prescribing  to  them  the  same 
duties  that  among  the  Catholics  are  prescribed,  or  rather 
attributed,  to  some  of  the  saints  ;  and  may  have  tribu  ted 
to  them  the  sort  of  worship  of  dulia,  tributed  to  the 
saints — even  made  images  that  they  imagined  to  repre- 
sent such  or  such  deity,  as  they  do  to-day  ;  but  I  have 
never  found  any.  They  worshiped  the  divine  essence, 
and  called  it  Kir. 

In  course  of  time  this  worship  may  have  been  replaced 
by  idolatrous  rites,  introduced  by  the  barbarous  or  half 
civilized  tribes  which  invaded  the  country,  and  implanted 
among  the  inhabitants  their  religious  belief,  their  idola- 
trous superstitions  and  form  of  worship  with  their  sym- 
bols. The  monuments  of  Uxmal  afford  ample  evidence 
of  that  fact. 

My  studies,  however,  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
history  of  the  country  posterior  to  the  invasion  of  the 
Nahualts.  These  people  appear  to  have  destroyed  the 
high  form  of  civilization  existing  at  the  time  of  their  ad- 
vent; and  tampered  with  the  ornaments  of  the  buildings 


25 

in  order  to  introduce  the  symbols  of  the  reciprocal  forces 
of  nature. 

The  language  of  the  ancient  Mayas,  strange  as  it  may 
appear,  has  survived  all  the  vicissitudes  of  time,  wars, 
and  political  and  religious  convulsions.  It  has,  of  course, 
somewhat  degenerated  by  the  mingling  of  so  many  races 
in  such  a  limited  space  as  the  peninsula  of  Yucatan  is  ; 
but  it  is  yet  the  vernacular  of  the  people.  The  Spaniards 
themselves,  who  strived  so  hard  to  wipe  out  all  vestiges 
of  the  ancient  customs  of  the  aborigines,  were  unable  to 
destroy  it ;  nay,  they  were  obliged  to  learn  it ;  and  now 
many  of  their  descendants  have  forgotten  the  mother 
tongue  of  their  sires,  and  speak  Maya  only. 

In  some  localities  in  Central  America  it  is  still  spoken  in 
its  pristine  purity,  as,  for  example,  by  the  CTiaacmules,  a 
tribe  of  bearded  men,  it  is  said,  who  live  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  unexplored  ruins  of  the  ancient  city  of  Tekal.  It  is  a 
well-known  fact  that  many  tribes,  as  that  of  the  Itzaes, 
retreating  before  the  Nahualt  invaders,  after  the  surren- 
der and  destruction  of  their  cities,  sought  refuge  in  the 
islands  of  the  lake  Peten  of  to-day,  and  called  it  Peten- 
itza,  the  islands  of  the  Itzaes;  or  in  the  well  nigh  inac- 
cessible valleys,  defended  by  ranges  of  towering  moun- 
tains. There  they  live  to-day,  preserving  the  customs, 
manners,  language  of  their  forefathers  unaltered,  in  the 
tract  of  land  known  to  us  as  Tier r a  de  Guerra.  No 
white  man  has  ever  penetrated  their  zealously  guarded 
stronghold  that  lays  between  Guatemala,  Tabasco,  Chia- 
pas and  Yucatan,  the  river  Uzumasinta  watering  part 
of  their  territory. 

The  Maya  language  seems  to  be  one  of  the  oldest 
tongues  spoken  by  man,  since  it  contains  words  and  ex- 
pressions of  all,or  nearly  all,  the  known  polished  languages 
on  earth.  The  name  Maya,  with  the  same  signification 
everywhere  it  is  met,  is  to  be  found  scattered  over  the 
different  countries  of  what  we  term  the  Old  World,  as  in 
Central  America. 

I  beg  to  call  your  attention  to  the  following  facts.  They 
may  have  no  significance.  They  may  be  mere  coinci- 


dences,  the  strange  freaks  of  hazard,  of  no  possible  value 
in  the  opinion  of  some  among  the  learned  men  of  our 
days.  Just  as  the  finding  of  English  words  and  English 
customs,  as  now  exist  among  the  most  remote  nations 
and  heterogeneous  people  and  tribes  of  all  races  and 
colors,  who  do  not  even  suspect  the  existence  of  one  an- 
other, may  be  regarded  by  the  learned  philologists  and 
'ethonologists  of  two  or  three  thousand  years  hence.  These 
will,  perhaps,  also  pretend  that  these  coincidences  are 
simply  the  curious  workings  of  the  human  mind — the 
efforts  of  men  endeavoring  to  express  their  thoughts  in 
language,  that  being  reduced  to  a  certain  number  of 
sounds,  must,  of  necessity  produce,  if  not  the  same,  at 
least  very  similar  words  to  express  the  same  idea — and 
that  this  similarity  does  not  prove  that  those  who  in- 
vented them  had,  at  any  time,  communication,  unless, 
maybe,  at  the  time  of  the  building  of  the  hypothetical 
Tower  of  Babel.  Then  all  the  inhabitants  of  earth  are 
said  to  have  bid  each  other  a  friendly  good  night,  a  certain 
evening,  in  a  universal  tongue,  to  find  next  morning  that 
everybody  had  gone  stark  mad  during  the  night :  since 
each  one,  on  meeting  sixty-nine  of  his  friends,  was 
greeted  by  every  one  in  a  different  and  unknown  manner, 
according  to  learned  rabbins ;  and  that  he  could  no  more 
understand  what  they  said,  than  they  what  he  said 

It  is  very  difficult  without  the  help  of  the  books  of  the 
learned  priests  of  Mayab  to  know  positively  why  they 
gave  that  name  to  the  country  known  to-day  as  Yucatan. 
I  can  only  surmise  that  they  so  called  it  from  the  great 
absorbant  quality  of  its  stony  soil,  which,  in  an  incred- 
ibly short  time,  absorbs  the  water  at  the  surface.  This 
percolating  through  the  pores  of  the  stone  is  afterward 
found  filtered  clear  and  cool  in  the  senotes  and  caves. 
Maydb,  in  the  Maya  language,  means  a  tammy,  a 
sieve.  From  the  name  of  the  country,  no  doubt,  the 
Mayas  took  their  name,  as  natural ;  and  that  name  is 
found,  as  that  of  the  English  to-day,  all  over  the  ancient 
civilized  world. 


27 

When,  on  January  28,  1873,  I  had  the  honor  of  read- 
ing a  paper  before  the  New  York  American  Geographi- 
cal  Society — on  the  coincidences    that    exist   between 
the  monuments,    customs,   religious    rites,  etc.    of    the 
prehistoric    inhabitants  of  America  and  those  of  Asia 
and    Egypt  —  I  pointed  to  the    fact  that  sun  circles, 
dolmen  and   tumuli,  similar    to    the  megalithic    monu- 
ments of  America,  had  been  found   to  exist  scattered 
through  the  islands  of   the  Pacific  to  Hindostan  ;  over 
the  plains    of    the    peninsulas  at  the   south    of  Asia, 
through  the  deserts  of  Arabia,  to  the  northern  parts  of 
Africa ;  and  that  not  only  these  rough  monuments  of  a 
primitive  age,  but  those  of  a  far  more  advanced  civiliza- 
tion were  also  to  be  seen  in  these  same  countries.     Allow 
me  to  repeat  now  what  I  then  said  regarding  these  strange 
facts  :  If  we  start  from  the  American  continent  and  travel 
towards  the    setting  sun  we  may  be  able  to  trace  the 
route  followed  by  the  mound  builders  to  the  plains  of 
Asia  and  the  valley  of  the  Nile.    The  mounds  scattered 
through  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  seem  to  be  the  rude 
specimens  of  that  kind  of  architecture.     Then  come  the 
more  highly  finished  teocalis  of  Yucatan  and  Mexico  and 
Peru  ;  the  pyramidal  mounds  of  Maui,  one  of  the  Sand- 
wich Islands  ;  those  existing  in  the  Fejee  and  other  islands 
of  the  Pacific  ;  which,  in  China,   we  find  converted  into 
the  high,  porcelain,  gradated  towers  ;  and  these  again  con- 
verted into  the  more  imposing  temples  of  Cochin-China, 
Hindostan,   Ceylon — so    grand,  so  stupendous  in  their 
wealth    of    ornamentation    that  those  of    Chichen-Itza 
Uxmal,  Palenque,  admirable  as  they  are,  well  nigh  dwin- 
dle into  insignificance,  as  far  as  labor  and  imagination  are 
concerned,  when  compared  with  them.    That  they  present 
the  same  fundamental  conception  in  their  architecture 
is  evident — a  platform  rising  over  another  platform,  the 
one  above  being  of  lesser  size  than  the  one  below  ;   the 
American  monuments    serving,   as  it  were,   as  models 
for  the  more  elaborate  and  perfect,  showing  the  advance 
of  art  and  knowledge. 


28 

The  name  Maya  seems  to  have  existed  from  the  re- 
motest times  in  the  meridional  parts  of  Hindostan.  Val- 
miki,  in  his  epic  poem,  the  Ramayana,  said  to  be  written 
1500  before  the  Christian  era,  in  which  he  recounts  the 
wars  and  prowesses  of  RAMA  in  the  recovery  of -his  lost 
wife,  the  beautiful  SITA,  speaking  of  the  country  inhab- 
ited by  the  Mayas,  describes  it  as  abounding  in  mines  of 
-silver  and  gold,  with  precious  stones  and  lapiz  lazuri : 
and  bounded  by  the  VindTiya  mountains  on  one  side,  the 
Prastravana  range  on  the  other  and  the  sea  on  the  third. 
The  emissaries  of  RAMA  having  entered  by  mistake  with- 
in the  Mayas  territories,  learned  that  all  foreigners  were 
forbidden  to  penetrate  into  them ;  and  that  those  who 
were  so  imprudent  as  to  violate  this  prohibition,  even 
through  ignorance,  seldom  escaped  being  put  to  death. 
(Strange  to  say,  the  same  thing  happens  to  day  to  those 
who  try  to  penetrate  into  the  territories  of  the  Santa 
Cruz  Indians,  or  in  the  valleys  occupied  by  the  Lacan- 
dones,  Itzaes  and  other  tribes  that  inhabit  La  Tlerra  de 
Guerra.  The  Yucatecans  themselves  do  riot  like  for- 
eigners to  go,  and  less  to  settle,  in  their  country — are 
consequently  opposed  to  immigration. 

The  emissaries  of  Rama,  says  the  poet,  met  in  the  for- 
est a  woman  who  told  them  :  That  in  very  remote  ages  a 
prince  of  the  Davanas,  a  learned  magician,  possessed  of 
great  power,  whose  name  was  Maya,  established  himself 
in  the  country,  and  that  he  was  the  architect  of  the  prin- 
cipal of  the  Davanas  :  but  having  fallen  in  love  with  the 
nymph  Hemd,  married  her  ;  whereby  he  roused  the  jeal- 
ousy of  the  god  Pourandura,  who  attacked  and  killed 
him  with  a  thunderbolt.  Now,  it  is  worthy  of  notice, 
that  the  word  Hem  signifies  in  the  Maya  language  to  cross 
with  ropes  ;  or  according  to  Brasseur,  hidden  mysteries. 

By  a  most  rare  coincidence  we  have  the  same  identical 
story  recorded  in  the  mural  paintings  of  Chaacmol's 
funeral  chamber,  and  in  the  sculptures  of  Chichsen  and 
Uxmal.  There  we  find  that  Chaacmol,  the  husband  of 
Moo  is  killed  by  his  brother  Aac,  who  stabbed  him  three 


29 

times  in  the  back  with  his  spear  for  jealousy.  Aac  was  in 
love  with  his  sister  Moo,  but  she  married  his  brother 
Chaacmol  from  choice,  and  because  the  law  of  the  coun- 
try prescribed  that  the  younger  brother  should  marry 
his  sister,  making  it  a  crime  for  the  older  brothers  to 
marry  her. 

In  another  part  of  the  Ramayand,  MAYA  is  described  as 
a  powerful  Asoura,  always  thirsting  for  battles  and  full 
of  arrogance  and  pride — an  enemy  to  Bali,  chief  of  one 
of  the  monkey  tribes,  by  whom  he  was  finally  vanquished. 
The  celebrated  Indian! st,  Mr.  H.  T.  Colebrooke,  in  a 
memoir  on  the  sacred  books  of  the  Hindoos,  published 
in  Vol.  VIII  of  the  "Asiatic  Researches,"  says:  "The 
SouryasiddJcdntu  (the  most  ancient  Indian  treatise  on  as- 
tronomy), is  not  considered  as  written  by  MAYA;  but  this 
personage  is  represented  as  receiving  his  science  from  a 
partial  incarnation  of  the  sun." 

MAYA  is  also,  according  to  the  Rig- Veda,  the  goddess, 
by  whom  all  things  are  created  by  her  union  with  Brah- 
ma. She  is  the  cosmic  egs;,  the  golden  uterus,  the  Hiram- 
yagarbha.  We  see  an  image  of  it,  represented  floating 
amidst  the  water,  in  the  sculptures  that  adorn  the  panel 
over  the  door  of  the  east  facade  of  the  monument,  called 
by  me  palace  and  museum  at  Chichen-Itza.  Emile  Bur- 
nouf,  in  his  Sanscrit  Dictionary,  at  the  word  Maya,  says : 
Maya,  an  architect  of  the  Datyas,  Maya  (mas.\  magician, 
prestidigitator;  (fern.)  illusion,  prestige;  Maya,  the  magic 
virtue  of  the  gods,  their  power  for  producing  all  things  ; 
also  the  feminine  or  producing  energy  of  Brahma. 

I  will  complete  the  list  of  these  remarkable  coincidences 
with  a  few  others  regarding  customs  exactly  similar  in 
both  countries.  One  of  these  consists  in  carrying  chil- 
dren astride  on  the  hip  in  Yucatan  as  in  India.  In 
Yucatan  this  custom  is  accompanied  by  a  very  interest- 
ing ceremony  called  Tietzmec.  It  is  as  follows :  When  a 
child  reaches  the  age  of  four  months  an  invitation  is  sent 
to  the  friends  and  members  of  the  family  of  the  parents 
to  assemble  at  their  house.  Then  in  presence  of  all  as- 


30 

sembled  the  legs  of  the  child  are  opened,  and  he  is  placed 
astride  the  hip  of  the  nailaTi  or  hetzmec  godmother ; 
she  in  turn  encircling  the  little  one  with  her  arm,  sup- 
ports him  in  that  position  whilst  she  walks  five  times 
round  the  house.  During  the  time  she  is  occupied  in  that 
walk  live  eggs  are  placed  in  hot  ashes,  so  that  they  may 
burst  and  the  five  senses  of  the  child  be  opened.  By  the 

^"mariner  in  which  they  burst  and  the  time  they  require 
for  bursting,  they  pretend  to  know  if  he  will  be  intelli- 
gent or  not.  During  the  ceremony  they  place  in  his  tiny 
hands  the  implement  pertaining  to  the  industry  he  is  ex- 
pected to  practice.  The  nailaTi  is  henceforth  considered 
as  a  second  mother  to  the  child  ;  who,  when  able  to  under- 
stand, is  made  to  respect  her  :  and  she  is  expected,  in  case 

1  of  the  mother's  death,  to  adopt  and  take  care  of  the  child 
as  if  he  were  her  own. 

Now,  I  will  call  your  attention  to  another  strange  and 
most  remarkable  custom  that  was  common  to  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Mayab,  some  tribes  of  the  aborigines  of  North 
America,  and  several  of  those  that  dwell  in  Hindostan, 
and  piactice  it  even  to-day.  I  refer  to  the  printing  of  the 
human  hand,  dipped  in  a  red  colored  liquid,  on  the  walls 
of  certain  sacred  edifices.  Could  not  this  custom,  exist- 
ing amongst  nations  so  far  apart,  unknown  to  each  other, 
and  for  apparently  the  same  purposes,  be  considered  as  a 
link  in  the  chain  of  evidence  tending  to  prove  that  very 
intimate  relations  and  communications  have  existed 
anciently  between  their  ancestors  ?  Might  it  not  help  the 
ethnologists  to  follow  the  migrations  of  the  human  race 
from  this  western  continent  to  the  eastern  and  southern 
shores  of  Asia,  across  the  wastes  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  ?  I 
am  told  by  unimpeachable  witnesses  that  they  have  seen 
the  red  or  bloody  hand  in  more  than  one  of  the  temples 
of  the  South  Sea  islanders ;  and  his  Excellency  Fred.  P. 
Barlee,  Esq.,  the  actual  governor  of  British  Honduras, 
has  assured  me  that  he  has  examined  this  seemingly  in- 
delible imprint  of  the  red  hand  on  some  rocks  in  cares  in 
Australia.  There  is  scarcely  a  monument  in  Yucatan 


31 

that  does  not  preserve  the  imprint  of  the  open  upraised 
hand,  dipped  in  red  paint  of  some  sort,  perfectly  visible 
on  its  walls.  I  lately  took  tracings  of  two  of  these  im- 
prints that  exist  in  the  back  saloon  of  the  main  hall,  in 
the  governor's  house  at  Uxmal,  in  order  to  calculate  the 
height  of  the  personage  who  thus  attested  to  those  of  his 
race,  as  I  learned  from  one  of  my  Indian  friends,  who 
passes  for  a  wizard,  that  the  building  was  in  naa,  my 
house.  I  may  well  say  that  the  archway  of  the  palace 
of  the  priests,  toward  the  court,  was  nearly  covered  with 
them.  Yet  I  arn  not  aware  that  such  symbol  was  ever 
used  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  countries  bordering  on  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean  or  by  the  Assyrians,  or  that 
it  ever  was  discovered  among  the  ruined  temples  or  pal- 
aces of  Egypt. 

The  meaning  of  the  red  hand  used  by  the  aborigines  of 
some  parts  of  America  has  been,  it  is  well  known,  a  sub- 
ject of  discussion  for  learned  men  and  scientific  societies. 
Its  uses  as  a  symbol  remained  for  a  long  time  a  matter 
of  conjecture.  It  seems  that  Mr.  Schoolcraft  had  truly 
arrived  at  the  knowledge  of  its  veritable  meaning.  Ef- 
fectively, in  the  2d  column  of  the  5th  page  of  the  New 
York  Herald  for  April  12,  1879,  in  the  account  of  the 
visit  paid  by  Gen.  Grant  to  Ram  Singh,  Maharajah  of 
Jeypoor,  we  read  the  description  of  an  excursion  to  the 
town  of  Amber.  Speaking  of  the  journey  to  the  Jiome  of 
an  Indian  king,  among  other  things  the  writer  says  :— 
"We  passed  small  temples,  some  of  them  ruined,  some 
"  others  with  offerings  of  grains,  or  fruits,  or  flowers, 
"  some  with  priests  and  people  at  worship.  On  the  walls 
"  of  some  of  the  temples  we  saw  the  marks  of  the  human 
"hand  as  though  it  had  been  steeped  in  blood  and  pres- 
"  sed  against  the  white  wall.  We  were  told  that  it  was 
"the custom,  when  seeking  from  the  gods  somebenison 
"  to  note  the  vow  by  putting  the  hand  into  a  liquid  and 
"  printing  it  on  the  wall.  This  was  to  remind  the  gods 
"  of  the  vow  and  prayer.  And  if  it  came  to  pass  in  the 
"  shape  of  rain,  or  food,  or  health,  or  children,  the  joy- 


32 

"  ous  devotee  returned  to  the  temple  and  made  other 
"  offerings.''  In  Yucatan  it  seems  to  have  had  the  same 
meaning.  That  is  to  say  :  that  the  owners  of  the  house  if 
private,  or  the  priests,  in  the  temples  and  public  buildings, 
called  upon  the  edifices  at  the  time  of  taking  possession 
and  using  them  for  the  first  time,  the  blessing  of  the  Deity; 
and  placed  the  hand's  imprints  on  the  walls  to  recall  the 
vows  and  prayer :  and  also,  as  the  interpretation  com- 
municated to  me  by  the  Indians  seems  to  suggest,  as  a 
signet  or  mark  of  property — in  nad,  my  house. 

I  need  not  speak  of  the  similarity  of  many  religious 
rites  and  beliefs  existing  in  Hindostan  and  among  the 
inhabitants  of  Mayab.  The  worship  of  the  fire,  of  the 
phallus,  of  Deity  under  the  symbol  of  the  mastodon's 
head,  recalling  that  of  Garieza,  the  god  with  an  ele- 
phant's head,  hence  that  of  the  elephant  in  Siam, 
Birmah  and  other  places  of  the  Asiatic  peninsula  even 
in  our  day  ;  and  various  other  coincidences  so  numerous 
and  remarkable  that  many  would  not  regard  them  as 
simple  coincidences.  What  to  think,  effectively,  of  the 
types  of  the  personages  whose  portraits  are  carved  on 
the  obelisks  of  Copan  ?  Were  they  in  Siam  instead  of 
Honduras,  who  would  doubt  but  they  are  Siameeses. 
What  to  say  of  the  figures  of  men  and  women  sculptured 
on  the  walls  of  the  stupendous  temples  hewn,  from  the 
live  rock,  at  Elephanta,  so  American  is  their  appearance 
and  features?  Who  would  not  take  them  to  be  pure 
aborigines  if  they  were  seen  in  Yucatan  instead  of 
Madras,  Elephanta  and  other  places  of  India. 

If  now  we  abandon  that  country  and,  crossing  the 
Himalaya's  range  enter  Afghanistan,  there  again  we 
find  ourselves  in  a  country  inhabited  by  Maya  tribes; 
whose  names,  as  those  of  many  of  their  cities,  are  of  pure 
American-Maya  origin.  In  the  fourth  column  of  the 
sixth  page  of  the  London  Times ,  weekly  edition,  of 
March  4,  1879,  we  read:  "4,000  or  5,000  assembled  on 
"  the  opposite  bank  of  the  river  Kabul,  and  it  appears 
"  that  in  that  day  or  evening  they  attacked  the  Maya 
"  villages  situated  on  the  north  side  of  the  river." 


33 

He,  the  correspondent  of  the  Times,  tells  us  that  Maya 
tribes  form  still  part  of  the  population  of  Afghanistan. 
He  also  tells  us  that  Kabul  is  the  name  of  the  river,   on 
the  banks  of  which  their  villages  are  situated.    But  Kabul 
is  the  name  of  an  antique  shrine  in  the  city  of  Izamal. 
Cogolludo,   in   the  lib.  IV.,  cap.  VIII.  of  his  History 
of  Yucatan,  says  :  ' '  They  had  another  temple  on  another 
"  mound,  on  the  west  side  of  the  square,  also  dedicated 
"  to  the  same  idol.     They  had  there  the  symbol  of  a    r 
"  hand,  as  souvenir.     To  that  temple  they  carried  their/  " 
"  dead  and  the  sick.     They  called  it  Kabul,  the  working! 
"  hand,  and  made  there  great  offerings."    Father  Lizana, 
says  the  same :   so  we  have  two  witnesses  to  the  fact. 
Kab,  in  Maya  means  hand  ;  and  Bui  is  to  play  at  hazard. 
Many  of  the  names  of  places  and  towns  of  Afghanis- 
tan have  not  only  a  meaning  in  the  American-Maya 
language,  but  are  actually  the  same  as  those  of  places 
and  villages  in  Yucatan  to-day,  for  example  : 

The  Valley  of  Chenar  would  be  the  valley  of  the 
well  of  the  woman7 s  children — chen,  well,  and  al,  the 
woman's  children.  The  fertile  valley  of  Kunar  would  be 
the  valley  of  the  god  of  the  ears  of  corn;  or,  more  pro- 
bably, the  nest  of  the  ears  of  corn :  as  Ku,  pronounced 
short,  means  God,  and  Kuu,  pronounced  long,  is  nest.  - 
NAL,  is  the  ears  of  corn. 

The  correspondent  of  the  London  Times,  in  his  letters, 
mentions  the  names  of  some  of  the  principal  tribes,  such 
as  the  Kuki-Khel,  the  AkaJchel,  the  Khambhur  Khel, 
etc.    The  suffix  Khel  simply  signifies  tribe,  or  clan.     So 
similar  to  the  Maya  vocable  Kaan,  a  tie,  a  rope ;  hence  a     \ 
clan :   a  number  of  people  held  together  by  the  tie  of  |v* 
parentage.      Now,    Kuki   would  be  Kukil,  or  Kukum  / 
maya  for  feather,  hence  the  KUKI-KHEL  would  be  the 
tribe  of  the  feather. 

AKA-KHEL  in  the  same  manner  would  be  the  tribe  of 
the  reservoir,  or  pond.  AKAL  is  the  Maya  name  for  the 
artificial  reservoirs,  or  ponds  in  which  the  ancient  inhabi- 
tants" of  Mayab  collected  rain  water  for  the  time  of 
drought. 


34 

Similarly  the  KHAMBHTJR  KHEL  is  the  tribe  of  the 
pleasant :  Kambul  in  Maya.  It  is  the  name  of  several 
villages  of  Yucatan,  as  you  may  satisfy  yourself  by  ex- 
amining the  map. 

We  have  also  the  ZAKA-KHEL,  the  tribe  of  the  locust, 
ZAK.  It  is  useless  to  quote  more  for  the  present:  enough 
to  say  that  if  you  read  the  names  of  the  cities,  valleys 
clans,  roads  even  of  Afghanistan  to  any  of  the  abori- 
gines of  Yucatan,  they  will  immediately  give  you  their 
meaning  in  their  own  language.  Before  leaving  the 
country  of  the  Afghans,  by  the  KHIBER  Pass — that  is  to 
say,  the  road  of  the  liawk  ;  Hi,  hawk,  and  BEL,  road — 
allow  me  to  inform  you  that  in  examining  their  types,  as 
published  in  the  London  illustrated  papers,  and  in 
Harper's  Weekly,  I  easily  recognized  the  same  cast  of 
features  as  those  of  the  bearded  men,  whose  portraits  we 
discovered  in  the  bas-reliefs  which  adorn  the  antse  and 
pillars  of  the  castle,  and  queen's  box  in  the  Tennis 
Court  at  Chichen-Itza. 

On  our  way 'to  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  and  hence  to 
Egypt,  we  may,  in  following  the  Mayas'  footsteps,  no- 
tice that  a  tribe  of  them,  the  learned  MAGI,  with  their 
Rabmag  at  their  head,  established  themselves  in  Babylon, 
where  they  became,  indeed,  a  powerful  and  influential 
body.  Their  chief  they  called  Rab-mag — or  LAB  MAC — 
the  old  person — LAB,  old — MAC,  person ;  and  their  name 
Magi,  meant  learned  men,  magicians,  as  that  of  Maya  in 
India.  I  will  directly  speak  more  at  length  of  vestiges 
of  the  Mayas  in  Babylon,  when  explaining  by  means  of 
the  American  Maya,  the  meaning  and  probable  etymol- 
ogy of  the  names  of  the  Chaldaic  divinities.  At  present 
I  am  trying  to  follow  the  footprints  of  the  Mayas. 

On  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor  we  find  a  people  of  a  roving 
and  piratical  disposition,  whose  name  was,  from  the  re- 
motest antiquity  and  for  many  centuries,  the  terror  of 
the  populations  dwelling  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterra- 
nean ;  whose  origin  was,  and  is  yet  unknown  ;  who  must 
have  spoken  Maya,  or  some  Maya  dialect,  since  we  find 


35 

words  of  that  language,  and  with  the  same  meaning  in 
serted  in  that  of  the  Greeks,  who,  Herodotus  tells  us,  used 
to  laugh  at  the  manner  the  Carians,  or  Car  as,  or  Garths, 
spoke  their  tongue  ;  whose  women  wore  a  white  linen 
dress  that  required  no  fastening,  just  as  the  Indian  and 
Mestiza  women  of  Yucatan  even  to-day 

To  tell  you  that  the  name  of  the  CARAS  is  found  over  a 
vast  extension  of  country  in  America,  would  be  to  repeat 
what  the  late  and  lamented  Brasseur  de  Bourbourg  has 
shown  in  his  most  learned  introduction  to  the  work  of 
Landa,  "  Relacion  de  las  cosas  de  Yucatan  ;"  but  this  I 
may  say,  that  the  description  of  the  customs  and  mode 
of  life  of  the  people  of  Yucatan,  even  at  the  time  of  the 
conquest,  as  written  by  Landa,  seems  to  be  a  mere  verba- 
tim plagiarism  of  the  description  of  the  customs  and 
mode  of  life  of  the  Carians  of  Asia  Minor  by  Herodotus. 

If  identical  customs  and  manners,  and  the  worship  of 
the  same  divinities  under  the  same  name,  besides  the 
traditions  of  a  people  pointing  towards  a  certain  point  of 
the  globe  as  being  the  birth-place  of  their  ancestors, 
prove  anything,  then  I  must  say  that  in  Egypt  also  we 
meet  with  the  tracks  of  the  Mayas,  of  whose  name  we 
again  have  a  reminiscence  in  that  of  the  goddess  Maia,  the 
daughter  of  Atlantis,  worshiped  in  Greece.  Here,  at  this 
end  of  the  voyage,  we  seem  to  find  an  intimation  as  to  the 
place  where  the  Mayas  originated.  We  are  told  that 
Maya  is  born  from  Atlantis  ;  in  other  words,  that  the 
Mayas  came  from  beyond  the  Atlantic  waters.  Here, 
also,  we  find  that  Maia  is  called  the  mother  of  the  gods 
Kubeles.  Ku,  Maya  God,  Bel  the  road,  the  way.  Ku-bel, 
the  road,  the  origin  of  the  gods  as  among  the  Hindos- 
tanees.  These,  we  have  seen  in  the  Rig  Yeda,  called 
Maya,  the  feminine  energy — the  productive  virtue  of 
Brahma. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  present  here  anything  but  facts, 
resulting  from  my  study  of  the  ancient  monuments  of 
Yucatan,  and  a  comparative  study  of  the  Maya  language, 
in  which  the  ancient  inscriptions,  I  have  been  able  to  de- 


36 

cipher,  are  written.     Let  us  see  if  chose  facts  are  sus- 
tained by  others  of  a  different  character. 

I  will  make  a  brief  parallel  between  the  architectural 

monuments  of  the  primitive  Chaldeans,  their  mode  of 

writing,  their  burial  places,  and  give  you  the  etymology 

of  the  names  of  their  divinities  in  the  American  Maya 

^language. 

The  origin  of  the  primitive  Chaldees  is  yet  an  un- 
settled matter  among  learned  men.  Some  professing  one 
opinion,  others  another.  All  agree,  however,  that  they 
were  strangers  to  the  lower  Mesopotamian  valleys,  where 
they  settled  in  very  remote  ages,  their  capital  being,  in 
the  time  of  Abraham,  as  we  learn  from  Scriptures,  Ur  or 
Hur.  So  named  either  because  its  inhabitants  were 
worshipers  of  the  moon,  or  from  the  moon  itself — u  in 
the  Maya  language — or  perhaps  also  because  the  found- 
ers being  strangers  and  guests,  as  it  were,  in  the  country, 
it  was  called  the  city  of  guests,  HULA  (Maya),  guest  just 
arrived. 

Recent  researches  in  the  plains  of  lower  Mesopotamia 
have  revealed  to  us  their  mode  of  building  their  sacred 
edifices,  which  is  precisely  identical  to  that  of  the  Mayas. 

It  consisted  of  mounds  composed  of  superposed  plat- 
forms, either  square  or  oblong,  forming  cones  or  pyra- 
mids, their  angles  at  times,  their  faces  at  others,  facing 
exactly  the  cardinal  points. 

Their  manner  of  construction  was  also  the  same,  with 
the  exception  of  the  materials  employed — each  people 
using  those  most  at  hand  in  their  respective  countries- 
clay  and  bricks  in  Chaldea,  stones  in  Yucatan.  The  fill- 
ing in  of  the  buildings  being  of  inferior  materials,  crude 
or  sun-dried  bricks  at  Warka  and  Mugheir  ;  of  unhewn 
stones  of  all  shapes  and  sizes,  in  Uxmal  and  Chichen, 
faced  with  walls  of  hewn  stones,  many  feet  in  thickness 
throughout.  Grand  exterior  staircases  lead  to  the  sum- 
mit, where  was  the  shrine  of  the  god,  and  temple. 

In  Yucatan  these  mounds  are  generally  composed  of 
seven  superposed  platforms,  the  one  above  being  smaller 


37 

than  that  immediately  below ;  the  temple  or  sanctuary 
containing  invariably  two  chambers,  the  inner  one,  the 
Sanctum  Sanctorum,  being  the  smallest. 

In  Babylon,  the  supposed  tower  of  Babel — the  Birs-i- 
nimrud — the  temple  of  the  seven  lights,  was  made  of 
seven  stages  or  platforms. 

The  roofs  of  these  buildings  in  both  countries  were  fiat ; 
the  walls  of  vast  thickness  ;  the  chambers  long  and  narrow, 
with  outer  doors  opening  into  them  directly ;  the  rooms 
ordinarily  let  into  one  another :  squared  recesses  were 
common  in  the  rooms.  Mr.  Lof  tus  is  of  opinion  that  the 
chambers  of  the  Chaldean  buildings  were  usually  arched 
with  bricks,  in  which  opinion  Mr.  Taylor  concurs.  We 
know  that  the  ceilings  of  the  chambers  in  all  the  monu- 
ments of  Yucatan,  without  exception,  form  triangular 
arches.  To  describe  their  construction  I  will  quote  from 
the  description  by  Herodotus,  of  some  ceilings  in  Egyptian 
buildings  and  Scythian  tombs,  that  resemble  that  of  the 
brick  vaults  found  at  Mugheir.  "The  side  walls  slope 
"  outward  as  they  ascend,  the  arch  is  formed  by  each  suc- 
ucessive  layer  of  brick  from  the  point  where  the  arch 
"begins,  a  little  overlapping  the  last,  till  the  two  sides 
"  of  the  roof  are  brought  so  near  together,  that  the  aper- 
"  ture  may  be  closed  by  a  single  brick." 

Some  of  the  sepulchers  found  in  Yucatan  are  very 
similar  to  the  jar  tombs  common  at  Mugheir.  These  con- 
sist of  two  large  open-mouthed  jars,  united  with  bitumen 
after  the  body  has  been  deposited  in  them,  with  the  usual 
accompaniments  of  dishes,  vases  and  ornaments,  having 
an  air  hole  bored  at  one  extremity.  Those  found  at  Pro- 
greso  were  stone  urns  about  three  feet  square,  cemented 
in  pairs,  mouth  to  mouth,  and  having  also  an  air  hole 
bored  in  the  bottom.  Extensive  mounds,  made  artifi- 
cially of  a  vast  number  of  coffins,  arranged  side  by  side, 
divided  by  thin  walls  of  masonry  crossing  each  other  at 
right  angles,  to  separate  the  coffins,  have  been  found  in 
the  lower  plains  of  Chaldea — such  as  exist  along  the 
coast  of  Peru,  and  in  Yucatan.  At  Izamal  many  human 


38 

remains,  contained  in  urns,  have  been  found  in  the 
mounds. 

uThe  ordinary  dress  of  the  common  people  among  the 
Chaldeans,"  says  Canon  Rawlison,  in  his  work,  the 
Five  Great  Monarchies,  "  seems  to  have  consisted  of  a 
single  garment,  a  short  tunic  tied  round  the  waist,  and 
reaching  thence  to  the  knees.  To  this  may  sometimes 
have  been  added  an  afoba,  or  cloak,  thrown  over  the 
shoulders  ;  the  material  of  the  former  we  may  perhaps 
presume  to  have  been  linen."  The  mural  paintings  at 
Chichen  show  that  the  Mayas  sometimes  used  the  same 
costume ;  and  that  dress  is  used  to-day  by  the  abori- 
gines of  Yucatan,  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  Tierra  de 
Guerra.  They  were  also  bare-footed,  and  wore  on  the  head 
a  band  of  cloth,  highly  ornamented  with  mother-of-pearl 
instead  of  camel's  hair,  as  the  Chaldee.  This  band  is  to 
be  seen  in  bas-relief  at  Chichen-Itza,  inthe  mural  paint- 
ings, and  on  the  head  of  the  statue  of  Chaacmol.  The 
higher  classes  wore  a  long  robe  extending  from  the  neck 
to  the  feet,  sometimes  adorned  with  a  fringe;  it  appears  not 
to  have  been  fastened  to  the  waist,  but  kept  in  place  by 
passing  over  one  shoulder,  a  slit  or  hole  being  made  for 
the  arm  on  one  side  of  the  dress  only.  In  some  cases  the 
upper  part  of  the  dress  seems  to  have  been  detached  from 
the  lower,  and  to  form  a  sort  of  jacket  which  reached 
about  to  the  hips.  We  again  see  this  identical  dress 
portrayed  in  the  mural  paintings.  The  same  descrip- 
tion of  ornaments  were  affected  by  the  Chaldees  and  the 
Mayas  —  bracelets,  earrings,  armlets,  anklets,  made  of 
the  materials  they  could  procure. 

The  Mayas  at  times,  as  can  be  seen  from  the  slab  dis- 
covered by  Bresseur  in  Mayapan  (an  exact  fac-simile  of 
which  cast,  from  a  mould  made  by  myself,  is  now  in  the 
rooms  of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society  at  Worces- 
ter, Mass.),  as  the  primitive  Chaldee,  in  their  writings, 
made  use  of  characters  composed  of  straight  lines  only, 
inclosed  in  square  or  oblong  figures;  as  we  see  from  the  in- 
scriptions in  what  has  been  called  hieratic  form  of  writing 


39 

found  at  Warka  and  Mugheir  and  the  slab  from  Mayapan 
and  others. 

The  Chaldees  are  said  to  have  made  use  of  three  kinds 
of  characters  that  Canon  Rawlinson  calls  letters  proper ', 
monograms  and  determinative.  The  Maya  also,  as  we 
see  from  the  monumental  inscriptions,  employed  three 
kinds  of  characters—  letter s  proper,  monograms  &ndi  pic- 
torial. 

It  may  be  said  of  the  religion  of  the  Mayas,  as  I  have 
had  occasion  to  remark,  what  the  learned  author  of  the 
Five  Great  Monarchies  says  of  that  of  the  primitive  Chal- 
dees :  "The  religion  of  the  Chaldeans,  from  the  very 
earliest  times  to  which  the  monuments  carry  us  back, 
was,  in  its  outward  aspect,  a  polytheism  of  a  very  elabo- 
rate character.  It  is  quite  possible  that  there  may  have 
been  esoteric  explanations,  known  to  the  priests  and  the 
more  learned ;  which,  resolving  the  personages  of  the 
Pantheon  into  the  powers  of  nature,  reconcile  the  appa- 
rent multiplicity  of  Gods  with  monotheism."  I  will  now 
consider  the  names  of  the  Chaldean  deities  in  their  turn  of 
rotation  as  given  us  by  the  author  above  mentioned,  and 
show  you  that  the  language  of  the  American  Mayas  gives 
us  an  etymology  of  the  whole  of  them,  quite  in  accord- 
ance with  their  particular  attributes. 

RA. 

The  learned  author  places  Ra  at  the  head  of  the 
Pantheon,  stating  that  the  meaning  of  the  word  is  simply 
God,  or  the  God  emphatically.  We  know  that  Ra  was 
the  Sun  among  the  Egyptians,  and  that  the  hieroglyx>h, 
a  circle,  representation  of  that  God  was  the  same  in 
Babylon  as  in  Egypt.  It  formed  an  element  in  the 
native  name  of  Babylon.  Which  was  7ca-ra. 

Now  the  Mayas  called  LA,  that  which  has  existed  for 
ever,  the  truth  par  excellence.  As  to  the  native  name  of 
Babylon  it  would  simply  be  the  city  of  the  infinite  truth 
— cah,  city;  LA,  eternal  truth. 


40 

ANA   OB  DIS. 

Ana,  like  Ra,  is  thought  to  have  signified  God  in  the 
highest  sense.  Its  etymology  seems  to  be  problematic. 
His  epithets  mark  priority  and  antiquity;  the  original 
chief,  the  father  of  the  gods,  the  lord  of  darkness  or 
death.  The  Maya  gives  us  A,  thy;  NA,  mother.  At  times 
he  was  called  DIS,  and  was  the  patron  god  of  Erech,  the 
"great  city  of  the  dead,  the  necropolis  of  Lower  Babylonia. 
Tix,  Maya  is  a  cavity  formed  in  the  earth.  It  seems  to 
have  given  its  name  to  the  city  of  Niffer,  called  Galneh 
in  the  translation  of  the  Septuagint,  from  Teal-ana,  which 
is  translated  the  "fort  of  Ana;"  or  according  to  the 
Maya,  the  prison  of  Ana,  KAL  being  prison,  or  the  prison 
of  thy  mother. 

ANATA 

the  supposed  wife  of  Ana,  has  no  peculiar  character- 
istics. Her  name  is  only,  says  our  author,  the  feminine 
form  of  the  masculine,  Ana.  But  the  Maya  designates 
her  as  the  companion  of  Ana;  TA,  with;  Anata  with  Ana. 

BIL  OR  ENU 

seems  to  mean  merely  Lord.  It  is  usually  followed  by 
a  qualificative  adjunct,  possessing  great  interest,  NIPRTJ. 
To  that  name,  which  recalls  that  of  NEBROTH  or  Nimrod, 
the  author  gives  a  Syriac  etymology  ;  napar  (make  to 
flee).  His  epithets  are  the  supreme,  the  father  of  the 
gods,  the  procreator. 

The  Maya  gives  us  BIL,  or  Bel ;  the  way,  the  road; 
hence  the  origin,  the  father,  the  procreator.  Also  EJSA, 
who  is  before  ;  again  the  father,  the  procreator. 

As  to  the  qualificative  adjunct  nipru.  It  would  seem 
to  be  the  Maya  niblu  ;  nib,  to  thank  ;  LU,  the  Bagre,  a 
silurus  fish.  Niblu  would  then  be  the  thanksgiving 
fish.  Strange  to  say,  the  high  priest  at  Uxmal  and 
Chichen,  elder  brother  of  Chaacmol,  first  son  of  Can,  the 
founder  of  those  cities,  is  CAY,  the  fish,  whose  effigy  is  my 
last  discovery  in  June,  among  the  ruins  of  Uxmal.  The 


bust  is  contained  within  the  jaws  of  a  serpent,  Can, 
and  over  it,  is  a  beautiful  mastodon  head,  with  the  trunk 
inscribed  with  Egyptian  characters,  which  read  TZAA, 
that  which  is  necessary. 

BELTIS 

is  the  wife  of  Bel-nipru.  But  she  is  more  than  his 
mere  female  power.  She  is  a  separate  and  important 
deity.  Her  common  title  is  the  Great  Goddess.  In 
Chaldea  her  name  was  Mulita  or  Enuta,  both  words 
signifying  the  lady.  Her  favorite  title  was  the  mother  of 
the  gods,  the  origin  of  the  gods. 

In  Maya  BEL  is  the  road,  the  way  ;  and  TE  means  here. 
BELTE  or  BELTIS  would  be  I  am  the  way,  the  origin. 

Mulita  would  correspond  to  MUL-TE,  many  here,  many 
in  me.  I  am  the  mother  of  many.  Her  other  name 
Enuta  seems  to  be  (Maya)  Ena-te,  signifies  ENA,  the 
first,  before  anybody,  and  TE  here.  ENATE,  I  am  here 
before  anybody,  I  am  the  mother  of  the  Gods. 

HEA   OR  HOA. 

The  God  Fish,  the  mystic  animal,  half  man,  half  fish, 
which  came  up  from  the  Persian  gulf  to  teach  astronomy 
and  letters  to  the  first  settlers  on  the  Euphrates  and 
Tigris. 

According  to  Berosus  the  civilization  was  brought  to 
Mesopotamia  by  Oannes  and  six  other  beings,  who,  like 
himself,  were  half  man,  half  fish,  and  that  they  came 
from  the  Indian  Ocean.  We  have  already  seen  that  the 
Mayas  of  India  were  not  only  architects,  but  also 
astronomers  ;  and  the  symbolic  figure  of  a  being  half 
man  and  half  fish  seems  to  clearly  indicate  that  those  who 
brought  civilization  to  the  shores  of  the  Euphrates  and 
Tigris  came  in  boats. 

Hoa-Ana,  or  Oannes,  according  to  the  Maya  would 
mean,  he  who  has  his  residence  or  house  on  the  water. 
HA,  being  water ;  «,  thy  ;  nd,  house ;  literally,  water 
tliy  house.  Canon  Rawlison  remarks  in  that  connection  : 


42 

"  There  are  very  strong  grounds  for  connecting  HEA  or 
"  Hoa,  with  the  serpent  of  the  Scripture,  and  the  para- 
"  disaical  traditions  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  and  the  tree 
"  of  life."  As  the  title  of  the  god  of  knowledge  and  sci- 
ence, Cannes,  is  the  lord  of  the  abyss,  or  of  the  great 
deep,  the  intelligent  lish,  one  of  his  emblems  being  the 
serpent,  CAN,  which  occupies  so  conspicuous  a  place 
among  the  symbols  of  the  gods  on  the  black  stones  re- 
cording benefactions. 

DAV-KINA 

Is  the  wife  of  Hoa,  and  her  name  is  thought  to  signify 
the  chief  lady.  But  the  Maya  again  gives  us  another 
meaning  that  seems  to  me  more  appropriate.  TAB-KIN 
would  be  the  rays  of  the  sun :  the  rays  of  the  light 
brought  with  civilization  by  her  husband  to  benighted 
inhabitants  of  Mesopotamia. 

SIN  OB  HUEKI 

is  the  name  of  the  moon  deity ;  the  etymology  of  it  is 
quite  uncertain.  Its  titles,  as  Rawlison  remarks,  are 
somewhat  vague.  Yet  it  is  particularly  designated  as 
"the  bright,  the  shining"  the  lord  of  the  month. 

Zin  in  Maya  has  also  many  significations.  Zin  is  to 
stretch,  to  extend.  Zinil  is  the  extension  of  the  whole 
of  the  universe.  HurJci  would  be  the  Maya  HULKIN— 
sun-stroked ;  he  who  receives  directly  the  rays  of  the  sun. 
Hurki  is  also  the  god  presiding  over  buildings  and 
architecture;  in  this  connection  he  is  called  Bel- JZuna. 
The  lord  of  building,  the  supporting  architect,  the 
strengthener  of  fortifications.  Bel-Zuna  would  also 
signify  the  lord  of  the  strong  house.  Zuu,  Maya,  close, 
thick.  Na,  house  :  and  the  city  where  he  had  his  great 
temple  was  Ur  ;  named  after  him.  U,  in  Maya,  signi- 
fies moon. 

SAN   OR  SANSI, 

the  Sun  God,  the  lord  of  fire,  the  ruler  of  the  day.  He 
who  illumines  the  expanse  of  heaven  and  earth. 


43 

Zamal  (Maya)  is  the  morning,  the  dawn  of  the  day, 
and  his  symbols  are  the  same  on  the  temples  of  Yucatan 
as  on  those  of  Chaldea,  India  and  Egypt. 


the  prince  of  the  powers  of  the  air,  the  lord  of  the 
whirlwind  and  the  tempest,  the  wielder  of  the  thunder- 
bolt, the  lord  of  the  air,  he  who  makes  the  tempest 
to  rage.  •  Hiba  in  Maya  is  to  rub,  to  scour,  to  chafe  as 
does  the  tempest.  As  YUL  he  is  represented  with  a  flam- 
ing sword  in  his  hand.  Hul  (Maya)  an  arrow.  He  is  then 
the  god  of  the  atmosphere,  who  gives  rain. 

ISHTAR  OR  NANA, 

the  Chaldean  Yenus,  of  the  etymology  of  whose  name 
no  satisfactory  account  can  be  given,  says  the  learned 
author,  whose  list  I  am  following  and  description 
quoting. 

The  Maya  language,  however,  affords  a  very  natural 
etymology.  Her  name  seems  composed  of  ix,  the  femi- 
nine article,  she  ;  and  of  tac,  or  tal,  a  verb  that  signifies  to 
have  a  desire  to  satisfy  a  corporal  want  or  inclination. 
IXTAL  would,  therefore,  be  she  who  desires  to  satisfy  a 
corporal  inclination.  As  to  her  other  name,  Nana,  it 
simply  means  the  great  mother,  the  very  mother.  If 
from  the  names  of  god  and  goddesses,  we  pass  to  that  of 
places,  we  will  find  that  the  Maya  language  also  furnishes 
a  perfect  etymology  for  them. 

In  the  account  of  the  creation  of  the  world,  according  to 
the  Chaldeans,  we  find  that  a  woman  whose  name  in  Chal- 
dee  is  TTialatth,  was  said  to  have  ruled  over  the  monstrous 
animals  of  strange  forms,  that  were  generated  and  existed 
in  darkness  and  water.  The  Greek  called  her  Thalassa 
(the  sea).  But  the  Maya  vocable  Thallac,  signifies  a 
thing  without  steadiness,  like  the  sea. 

URTJKH. 

The  first  king  of  the  Chaldees  was  a  great  architect. 
To  him  are  ascribed  the  most  archaic  monuments  of  the 


4.4: 

plains  of  Lower  Mesopotamia.  He  is  said  to  have  con- 
ceived the  plans  of  the  Babylonian  Temple.  He  con- 
structed his  edifices  of  mud  and  bricks,  with  rectan- 
gular bases,  their  angles  fronting  the  cardinal  points ; 
receding  stages,  exterior  staircases,  with  shrines  crown- 
ing the  whole  structure.  In  this  description  of  the  primi- 
tive constructions  of  the  Chaldeans,  no  one  can  fail  to 
-—recognize  the  Maya  mode  of  building,  and  we  see  them 
not  only  in  Yucatan,  but  throughout  Central  America, 
Peru,  even  Hindoostan.  The  very  name  UrkuJi  seems 
composed  of  two  Maya  words  HTJK,  to  make  everything, 
and  Lux,  mud  ;  he  who  makes  everything  of  mud  ;  so 
significative  of  his  building  propensities  and  of  the  mate- 
rials used  by  him. 

ASSYRIA. 

The  etymology  of  the  name  of  that  country,  as  well  as 
that  of  Asshur,  the  supreme  god  of  the  Assyrians,  who 
never  pronounced  his  name  without  adding  u  Asshur  is 
my  lord,"  is  still  an  undecided  matter  amongst  the 
learned  philologists  of  our  days.  Some  contend  that  the 
country  was  named  after  the  god  Asshur ;  others  that 
the  god  Asshur  received  his' name  from  the  place  where 
he  was  worshiped.  None  agree,  however,  as  to  the 
significative  meaning  of  the  name  Asshur.  In  Assyrian 
and  Hebrew  languages  the  name  of  the  country  and 
people  is  derived  from  that  of  the  god.  That  Asshur 
was  the  name  of  the  deity,  and  that  the  country  was 
named  after  it,  I  have  no  doubt,  since  I  find  its  etymol- 
ogy, so  much  sought  for  by  philologists,  in  the  Ameri- 
can Maya  language.  Effectively  the  word  assJiur,  some- 
times written  asTiur,  would  be  AXUL  in  Maya. 

A,  in  that  language,  placed  before  a  noun,  is  the 
possessive  pronoun,  as  the  second  person,  thy  or  thine, 
and  xul,  means  end,  termination.  It  is  also  the  name  of 
the  sixth  month  of  the  Maya  calendar.  Axul  would 
therefore  be  tliy  end.  Among  all  the  nations  which 
have  recognized  the  existence  of  a  SUPREME  BEING, 
Deity  has  been  considered  JSLS  the  beginning  and  end  of 
all  things,  to  which  all  aspire  to  be  united. 


45 

A  strange  coincidence  that  may  be  without  signifi- 
cance, but  is  not  out  of  place  to  mention  here,  is  the  fact 
that  the  early  kings  of  Chaldea  are  represented  on  the 
monuments  as  sovereigns  over  the  Kiprat-arbat,  or 
FOUR  RACES.  While  tradition  tells  us  that  the  great 
lord  of  the  universe,  king  of  the  giants,  whose  capital 
was  Tiahuanaco^Q  magnificent  ruins  of  which  are  still  to 
be  seen  on  the  shores  of  the  lake  of  Titicaca,  reigned  over 
Ttahuatyn-suyu,  the  FOUR  PROVINCES.  In  the  CTiou- 
King  we  read  that  in  very  remote  times  China  was  called 
by  its  inhabitants  Sse-yo,  THE  FOUR  PARTS  OF  THE  EM- 
PIRE. The  Manama- Dharma-Sastr  a,  the  Ramayana, 
and  other  sacred  books  of  Hindostan  also  inform  us  that 
the  ancient  Hindoos  designated  their  country  as  the 
FOUR  MOUNTAINS,  and  from  some  of  the  monumental 
inscriptions  at  Uxmal  it  would  seem  that,  among  other 
names,  that  place  was  called  the  land  of  the  canchi,  or 
FOUR  MOUTHS,  that  recalls  vividly  the  name  of  Chaldea 
Arba-Lisun,  the  FOUR  TONGUES. 

That  the  language  of  the  Mayas  was  known  in  Chaldea 
in  remote  ages,  but  became  lost  in  the  course  of  time,  is 
evident  from  the  Book  of  Daniel.  It  seems  that  some  of 
the  learned  men  of  Judea  understood  it  still  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Christian  era,  as  many  to-day  understand 
Greek,  Latin,  Sanscrit,  &c.;  since,  we  are  informed  by 
the  writers  of  the  Gospels  of  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark, 
that  the  last  words  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  expiring  on  the 
cross  were  uttered  in  it. 

In  the  fifth  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Daniel,  we  read  that 
the  fingers  of  the  hand  of  a  man  were  seen  writing  on  the 
wall  of  the  hall,  where  King  Belshazzar  was  banqueting, 
the  words  "Mene,  mene,  Tekel,  upharsin,"  which  could 
not  be  read  by  any  of  the  wise  men  summoned  by  order  of 
the  king.  Daniel,  however,  being  brought  in,  is  said  to 
have  given  as  their  interpretation  :  Numbered,  number- 
ed, weighed,  dividing,  perhaps  with  the  help  of  the 
angel  Gabriel,  who  is  said  by  learned  rabbins  to  be  the 
only  individual  of  the  angelic  hosts  who  can  speak  Chal- 


46 

dean  and  Syriac,  and  had  once  before  assisted  him  in  in- 
terpreting the  dream  of  King  Nebuchadnezzar.  Perhaps 
also,  having  been  taught  the  learning  of  the  Chaldeans, 
he  had  studied  the  ancient  Chaldee  language,  and  was 
thus  enabled  to  read  the  fatidical  words,  which  have  the 
very  same  meaning  in  the  Maya  language  as  he  gave 
them.  Effectively,  mene  or  mane,  numbered,  would 
seem  to  correspond  to  the  Maya  verbs,  MAN,  to  buy,  to 
purchase,  hence  to  number,  things  being  sold  by  the 
quantity  —  or  MANEL,  to  pass,  to  exceed.  TeJcel, 
weighed,  would  correspond  to  TEC,  light.  To-day  it 
is  used  in  the  sense  of  lightness  in  motion,  brevity, 
nimbleness  :  and  Upharsin,  dividing,  seem  allied  to  the 
words  PPA,  to  divide  two  things  united  ;  or  uppah,  to 
break,  making  a  sharp  sound ;  or  paah,  to  break  edi- 
fices ;  or,  again,  PAALTAL,  to  break,  to  scatter  the  inhabi- 
tants *of  a  place. 

As  to  the  last  words  of  Jestfs  of  Nazareth,  when  expir- 
ing on  the  cross,  as  reported  by  the  Evangelists,  Eli,  Eli, 
according  to  St.  Matthew,  and  Eloi,  Eloi,  according 'to 
St.  Mark,  lama  sabachthani,  they  are  pure  Maya 
vocables  ;  but  have  a  very  different  meaning  to  that  a.t- 
tributed  to  them,  and  more  in  accordance  with  His 
character.  By  placing  in  the  mouth  of  the  dying  martyr 
these  words :  My  God,  my  God,  wTiy  hast  thou  forsaken 
me  ?  they  have  done  him  an  injustice,  presenting  him  in 
his  last  moments  despairing  and  cowardly,  traits  so 
foreign  to  his  life,  to  his  teachings,  to  the  resignation 
shown  by  him  during  his  trial,  and  to  the  fortitude  dis- 
played by  him  in  his  last  journey  to  Calvary ;  mor« 
than  all,  so  unbecoming,  not  to  say  absurd,  being  in 
glaring  contradiction  to  his  role  as  God.  If  God  him- 
self, why  complain  that  God  has  forsaken  him$  He 
evidently  did  not  speak  Hebrew  in  dying,  since  his  two 
mentioned  biographers  inform  us  that  the  people  around 
him  did  not  understand  what  he  said,  and  supposed  he 
was  calling  Elias  to  help  him  :  This  man  calleth  for 
Ellas. 


47 

His  bosom  friend,  who  never  abandoned  him — who 
stood  to  the  last  at  the  foot  of  the  cross,  with  his  mother 
and  other  friends  and  relatives,  do  not  report  such  un- 
befitting words  as  having  been  uttered  by  Jesus.  He 
simply  says,  that  after  recommending  his  mother  to  his 
care,  he  complained  of  being  thirsty,  and  that,  as  the 
sponge  saturated  with  vinegar  was  applied  to  his  mouth, 
he  merely  said  :  IT  is  FINISHED  !  and  Tie  bowed  Tits  head 
and  gave  up  the  ghost.  (St.  John,  chap,  xix.,  v.  30.) 

Well,  this  is  exactly  the  meaning  of  the  Maya  words, 
HELO,  HELO,  LAM  AH  ZABAC  TA  NI,  literally :  HELO,  HELO, 
now,  now  ;  LAM  AH,  sinking  ;  ZABAC.  black  ink  ;  TA,  over; 
NI,  nose ;  in  our  language :  Now,  now  I  am  sinking ; 
darkness  covers  my  face  !  No  weakness,  no  despair— He 
merely  tells  his  friends  all  is  over.  It  is  finished  !  and 
expires. 

Before  leaving  Asia  Minor,  in  order  to  seek  in 
Egypt  the  vestiges  of  the  Mayas,  I  will  mention  the 
fact  that  the  names  of  some  of  the  natives  who  in- 
habited of  old  that  part  of  the  Asiatic  continent,  and 
many  of  those  of  places  and  cities  seem  to  be  of 
American  Maya  origin.  The  Promised  Land,  for  ex- 
ample—that part  of  the  coast  of  Phoenicia  so  famous  for 
the  fertility  of  its  soil,  where  the  Hebrews,  after  journey- 
ing during  forty  years  in  the  desert,  arrived  at  last,  tired 
and  exhausted  from  so  many  hard-fought  battles — was 
known  as  Canaan.  This  is  a  Maya  word  that  means  to 
be  tired,  to  be  fatigued  ;  and,  if  it  is  spelled  Kanaan,  it 
then  signifies  abundance ;  both  significations  applying 
well  to  the  country. 

TYRE,  the  great  emporium  of  the  Phoenicians,  called 
Tzur,  probably  on  account  of  being  built  on  a  rock, 
may  also  derive  its  name  from  the  Maya  Tzuc,  a  promon- 
tory, or  a  number  of  villages,  Tzucub  being  a  province. 

Again,  we  have  the  people  called  Khali  by  the 
Egyptians.  They  formed  a  great  nation  that  inhabited 
the  Ocele-Syria  and  the  valley  of  the  Orontes,  where  they 
have  left  very  interesting  proofs  of  their  passage  on 


48 

earth,  in  large  and  populous  cities  whose  ruins  have  been 
lately  discovered.  Their  origin  is  unknown,  and  is 
yet  a  problem  to  be  solved.  They  are  celebrated  on  ac- 
count of  their  wars  against  the  Assyrians  and  Egyptians, 
who  call  them  the  plague  of  Khati.  Their  name  is  fre- 
quently mentioned  in  the  Scriptures  as  Hittites.  Placed 
-on  the  road,  between  the  Assyrians  and  the  Egyptians, 
by  whom  they  were  at  last  vanquished,  they  placed  well 
nigh  insuperable  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  conquests  of 
these  two  powerful  nations,  which  found  in  them  ten- 
acious and  fearful  adversaries.  The  Khati  had  not  only 
made  considerable  improvements  in  all  military  arts,  but 
were  also  great  and  famed  merchants  ;  their  emporium 
OarcTiemisTi  had  no  less  importance  than  Tyre  or  Carthage. 
There,  met  merchants  from  all  parts  of  the  world ; 
who  brought  thither  the  products  and  manufactures  of 
their  respective  countries,  and  were  wont  to  worship  at 
the  Sacred  City,  Katisli  of  the  Khati.  The  etymology 
of  their  name  is  also  unknown.  Some  historians  having 
pretended  that  they  were  a  Scythian  tribe,  derived  it  from 
Scy  thia  ;  but  I  think  that  we  may  find  it  very  natural,  as 
that  of  their  principal  cities,  in  the  Maya  language. 

All  admit  that  the  Khati,  until  the  time  when  they 
were  vanquished  by  Rameses  the  Great,  as  recorded  on 
the  walls  of  his  palace  at  Thebes,  the  Memnonium, 
always  placed  obstacles  on  the  way  of  the  Egyptians  and 
opposed  them.  According  to  the  Maya,  their  name  is 
significative  of  these  facts,  since  KAT  or  KATAH  is  a  verb 
that  means  to  place  impediments  on  the  road,  to  come 
forth  and  obstruct  the  passage. 

CarcTiemisTi  was  their  great  emporium,  where  mer- 
chants from  afar  congregated  ;  it  was  consequently  a 
city  of  merchants.  CAH  means  a  city,  and  Chemul  is 
navigator.  CarcTiemisTi  would  then  be  cah-cTiemul,  the 
city  of  navigators,  of  merchants. 

KATISH,  their  sacred  city,  would  be  the  city  where 
sacrifices  are  offered.  CAH,  city,  and  TICK,  a  ceremony 
practiced  by  the  ancient  Mayas,  and  still  performed  by 


49 

their  descendants  all  through  Central  America.  This 
sacrifice  or  ceremony  consists  in  presenting  to  BALAM, 
the  Yumil-Kaax,  the  "  Lord  of  the  fields,"  the  primitice 
of  all  their  fruits  before  beginning  the  harvest.  Katish, 
or  cah-tich  would  then  be  the  city  of  the  sacrifices— the 
holy  city. 

EGYPT  is  the  country  that  in  historical  times  has  called, 
more  than  any  other,  the  attention  of  the  students,  of  all 
nations  and  in  all  ages,  on  account  of  the  grandeur  and 
beauty  of  its  monuments ;  the  peculiarity  of  its  inhabit- 
ants ;  their  advanced  civilization,  their  great  attainments 
in  all  branches  of  human  knowledge  and  industry  ;  and 
its  important  position  at  the  head  of  all  other  nations  of 
antiquity.  Egypt  has  been  said  to  be  the  source  from 
which  human  knowledge  began  to  flow  over  the  old  world : 
yet  no  one  knows  for  a  certainty  whence  came  the  people 
that  laid  the  first  foundations  of  that  interesting  nation. 
That  they  were  not  autochthones  is  certain.  Their 
learned  priests  pointed  towards  the  regions  of  the  West 
as  the  birth-place  of  their  ancestors,  and  designated  the 
country  in  which  they  lived,  the  East,  as  the  pure  land, 
the  land  of  the  sun,  of  light,  in  contradistinction  of  the 
country  of  the  dead,  of  darkness — the  Amenti,  the  West 
—where  Osiris  sat  as  King,  reigning  judge,  over  the 
souls. 

If  in  Hindostan,  Afghanistan,  Chaldea,  Asia  Minor, 
we  have  met  with  vestiges  of  the  Mayas,  in  Egypt  we 
will  find  their  traces  everywhere.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  name  given  to  the  valley  watered  by  the  Nile  by 
its  primitive  inhabitants,  no  one  at  present  knows. 
The  invaders  that  came  from  the  West  called  it  CHEM  : 
not  on  account  of  the  black  color  of  the  soil,  as  Plutarch 
pretends  in  his  work,  "  Delsideet  Osiride,"  but  more 
likely  because  either  they  came  to  it  in  boats  ;  or,  quite 
probably,  because  when  they  arrived  the  country  was 
inundated,  and  the  inhabitants  communicated  by  means 
of  boats,  causing  the  new  comers  to  call  it  the  country 
of  boats — CHEM  (may  a).  The  hieroglyph  representing 


50 

the  name  of  Egypt  is  composed  of  the  character  used 
for  land,  a  cross  circumscribed  by  a  circle,  and  of 
another,  read  K,  which  represent  a  sieve,  it  is  said, 
but  that  may  likewise  be  the  picture  of  a  small  boat. 
The  Assyrians  designated  Egypt  under  the  names  of 
MISIR  or  MISUB,  probably  because  the  country  is  gene- 
rally destitute  of  trees.  These  are  uprooted  during  the 
inundations,  and  then  carried  by  the  currents  all  over 
the  country;  so  that  the  farmers,  in  order  to  be  able  to  plow 
the  soil,  are  obliged  to  clear  it  first  from  the  dead  trees. 
Now  we  have  the  Maya  verb  Miz — to  clean,  to  remove 
rubbish  formed  by  the  body  of  dead  trees  ;  whilst  the 
verb  MTJSUR  means  to  cut  the  trees  by  the  roots.  It  would 
seem  that  the  name  Mizraim  given  to  Egypt  in  the  Scrip- 
tures also  might  come  from  these  words. 

When  the  Western  invaders  reached  the  country  it 
was  probably  covered  by  the  waters  of  the  river,  to 
which,  we  are  told,  they  gave  the  name  of  Hapimu.  Its 
etymology  seems  to  be  yet  undecided  by  the  Egyptolo- 
gists, who  agree,  however,  that  its  meaning  is  the  abyss 
of  water.  The  Maya  tells  us  that  this  name  is  composed 
of  two  words— HA,  water,  and  PIMIL,  the  thickness  of 
flat  things.  Hapimu,  or  HAPIMIL,  would  then  be  the 
thickness,  the  abyss  of  water. 

We  find  that  the  prophets  Jeremiah  (xlvi.,  25,)  and 
Nahum  (iii. ,  8, 10,)  call  THEBES,  the  capital  of  upper  Egypt 
during  the  XVIII.  dynasty:  No  or  NA-AMUN,  the  mansion 
of  Amun.  Nd  signifies  in  Maya,  house,  mansion,  residence. 
But  Thebes  is  written  in  Egyptian  hieroglyphs  AP,  or 
APE,  the  meaning  of  which  is  the  head,  the  capital ;  with 
the  feminine  article  T,  that  is  always  used  as  its  prefix 
in  hieroglyphic  writings,  it  becomes  TAPE;  which, 
according  to  Sir  Gardner  Wilkinson  ("  Manners  and  Cus- 
toms of  the  Ancient  Egyptians,"  torn.  III.,  page  210, 
N.  Y.  Edition,  1878),  was  pronounced  by  the  Egyptians 
Taba ;  and  in  the  Menphitic  dialect  Thaba,  that  the 
Greeks  converted  into  Thebai,  whence  Thebes.  The  Maya 
verb  Teppal,  signifies  to  reign,  to  govern,  to  order.  On 


51 

each  side  of  the  mastodons'  heads,  which  form  so  promi- 
nent a  feature  in  the  ornaments  of  the  oldest  edifices 
at  Uxmal,  Chichen-Itza  and  other  parts,  the  word  Dapas  ; 
hence  TABAS  is  written  in  ancient  Egyptian  characters, 
and  read,  I  presume,  in  old  Maya,  head.  To-day  the 
word  is  pronounced  THAB,  and  means  baldness. 

The  identity  of  the  names  of  deities  worshiped  by  in- 
dividuals, of  their  religious  rites  and  belief  ;  that  of  the 
names  of  the  places  which  they  inhabit ;  the  similarity 
of  their  customs,  of  their  dresses  and  manners ;  the  same- 
ness of  their  scientific  attainments  and  of  the  characters 
used  by  them  in  expressing  their  language  in  writing, 
lead  us  naturally  to  infer  that  they  have  had  a  common 
origin,  or,  at  least,  that  their  forefathers  were  intimately 
connected.  If  we  may  apply  this  inference  to  nations 
likewise,  regardless  of  the  distance  that  to-day  separates 
the  countries  where  they  live,  I  can  then  affirm  that  the 
Mayas  and  the  Egyptians  are  either  of  a  common  de- 
scent, or  that  very  intimate  communication  must  have 
existed  in  remote  ages  between  their  ancestors. 

Without  entering  here  into  a  full  detail  of  the  cus- 
toms and  manners  of  these  people,  I  will  make  a  rapid 
comparison  between  their  religious  belief,  their  customs, 
manners,  scientific  attainments,  and  the  characters  used 
by  them  in'- writing  etc.,  sufficient  to  satisfy  any  reasona- 
ble body  that  the  strange  coincidences  that  follow,  can- 
not be  altogether  accidental. 

The  SUN,  RA,  was  the  supreme  god  worshiped 
throughout  the  land  of  Egypt ;  and  its  emblem  was  a 
disk  or  circle,  at  times  surmounted  by  the  serpent 
Urseus.  Egypt  was  frequently  called  the  Land  of  the 
Sun.  RA  or  LA  signifies  in  Maya  that  which  exists,  em- 
phatically that  which  is — the  truth. 

The  sun  was  worshiped  by  the  ancient  Mayas  ;  and 
the  Indians  to-day  preserve  the  dance  used  by  their 
forefathers  among  the  rites  of  the  adoration  of  that  lum- 
inary, and  perform  it  yet  in  certain  epoch  of  the  year. 
The  coat-of-arms  of  the  city  of  Uxmal,  sculptured  on  the 


52 

west  fagade  of  the  sanctuary,  attached  to  the  masonic 
temple  in  that  city,  teaches  us  that  the  place  was  called 
u  LUUMIL  KIN,  the  land  of  the  sun.  This  name  forming 
the  center  of  the  escutcheon,  is  written  with  a  cross,  cir- 
cumscribed by  a  circle,  that  among  the  Egyptians  is  the 
sign  for  land,  region,  surrounded  by  the  rays  of  the  sun. 

Colors  in  Egypt,  as  in  Mayab,  s^em  to  have  had  the 
same  symbolical  meaning.  The  figure  of  Amun  was 
that  of  a  man  whose  body  was  light  blue,  like  the 
Indian  god  Wishnu,  and  that  of  the  god  Nilus ;  as  if  to 
indicate  their  peculiar  exalted  and  heavenly  nature  ;  this 
color  being  that  of  the  pure,  bright  skies  above.  The 
blue  color  had  exactly  the  same  significance  in  Mayab, 
according  to  Landa  and  Cogolludo,  who  tell  us  that, 
even  at  the  time  of  the  Spanish  conquest,  the  bodies  of 
those  who  were  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  gods  were  painted 
blue.  The  mural  paintings  in  the)  funeral  chamber  of 
Chaacmol,  at  Chichen,  confirm  this  assertion.  There 
we  see  figures  of  men  and  women  painted  blue,  some 
marching  to  the  sacrifice  with  their  hands  tied  behind 
their  backs.  After  being  thus  painted  they  were  vener- 
ated by  the  people,  who  regarded  them  as  sanctified. 
Blue  in  Egypt  was  always  the  color  used  at  the  funerals. 

The  Egyptians  believed  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul ; 
and  that  rewards  and  punishments  were  adjudged  by 
Osiris,  the  king  of  the  Amenti,  to  the  souls  according  to 
their  deeds  during  their  mundane  life.  That  the  souls 
after  a  period  of  three  thousand  years  were  to  return  to 
earth  and  inhabit  again  their  former  earthly  tenements. 
This  was  the  reason  why  they  took  so  much  pains  to  em- 
balm the  body. 

The  Mayas  also  believed  in  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  as  I  have  already  said.  Their  belief  was  that  after 
the  spirit  had  suffered  during  a  time  proportioned  to 
their  misdeeds  whilst  on  earth,  and  after  having  enjoy- 
ed an  amount  of  bliss  corresponding  to  their  good  ac- 
tions, they  were  to  return  to  earth  and  live  again  a  ma- 
terial life.  Accordingly,  as  the  tbody  was  corruptible, 


58 

they  made  statues  of  stones,  terra-cotta,  or  wood,  in  the 
semblance  of  the  deceased,  whose  ashes  they  deposited 
in  a  hollow  made  for  that  purpose  in  the  back  of 
the  head.  Sometimes  also  in  stone  urns,  as  in  the  case 
of  Chaacmol.  The  spirits,  on  their  return  to  earth,  were 
to  find  these  statues,  impart  life  to  them,  and  use  them 
as  body  during  their  new  existence. 

I  am  not  certain  but  that,  as  the  Egyptians  also,  they 
were  believers  in  transmigration ;  and  that  this  belief  ex- 
ists yet  among  the  aborigines.  I  have  noticed  that  my 
Indians  were  unwilling  to  kill  any  animal  whatever,  even 
the  most  noxious  and  dangerous,  that  inhabits  the  ruin- 
ed monuments.  I  have  often  told  them  to  kill  some  ven- 
omous insect  or  serpent  that  may  have  happened  to  be  in 
our  way.  They  invariably  refused  to  do  so,  but  softly  and 
carefully  caused  them  to  go.  And  when  asked  why  they 
did  not  kill  them,  declined  to  answer  except  by  a  know- 
ing and  mysterious  smile,  as  if  afraid  to  let  a  stranger 
into  their  intimate  beliefs  inherited  from  their  ancestors  : 
remembering,  perhaps,  the  fearful  treatment  inflicted 
by  fanatical  friars  on  their  fathers  to  oblige  them  to 
forego  what  they  called  the  superstitions  of  their  race— 
the  idolatrous  creed  of  their  forefathers. 

I  have  had  opportunity  to  discover  that  their  faith  in 
reincarnation,  as  many  other  time-honored  credences, 
still  exists  among  them,  unshaken,  notwithstanding  the 
persecutions  and  tortures  suffered  by  them  at  the  hands 
of  ignorant  and  barbaric  Christians  (?) 

I  will  give  two  instances  when  that  belief  in  reincarna- 
tion was  plainly  manifested. 

The  day  that,  after  surmounting  many  difficulties, 
when  my  ropes  and  cables,  made  of  withes  and  the 
bark  of  the  lidbin  tree,  were  finished  and  adjusted  to 
the  capstan  manufactured  of  hollow  stones  and  trunks 
of  trees;  and  I  had  placed  the  ponderous  statue  of 
Chaacmol  on  rollers,  already  in  position  to  drag  it  up 
the  inclined  plane  made  from  the  surface  of  the  ground 
to  a  few  feet  above  the  bottom  of  the  excavation ;  my 


54 

men,  actuated  by  their  superstitious  fears  on  the  one 
hand,  and  their  profound  reverence  for  the  memory  of 
their  ancestors  on  the  other,  unwilling  to  see  the  effigy 
of  one  of  the  great  men  removed  from  where  their  an- 
cestors had  placed  it  in  ages  gone  by  resolved  to  bury 
it,  by  letting  loose  the  hill  of  dry  stones  that  formed  the 
body  of  the  mausoleum,  and  were  kept  from  falling  in 
the  hole  by  a  framework  of   thin  trunRs  of  trees  tied 
with  withes,  and  in  order  that  it  should  not  be  injured, 
to  capsize  it,  placing  the  face  downward.     They  had 
already  overturned  it,  when  I  interfered  in  time  to  pre- 
vent more  mischief,  and  even  save  some  of  them  from 
certain  death;  since  by  cutting  loose  the  withes  that 
keep  the  framework  together,  the  sides  of  the  excava- 
tion were  bound  to  fall  in,  and  crush  those  at  the  bottom. 
I  honestly  think,  knowing  their  superstitious  feelings 
and  propensities,  that  they  had  made  up  their  mind  to 
sacrifice  their  lives,  in  order  to  avoid  what  they  consid- 
ered a  desecration  of  the  future  tenement  that  the  great 
warrior  and  king  was  yet  to  inhabit,  when  time  had  ar- 
rived.    In  order  to  overcome  their  scruples,  and  also  to 
prove  if  my  suspicions  were  correct,  that,  as  their  fore- 
fathers and  the  Egyptians  of  old,  they  still  believed  in  re- 
incarnation, I  caused  them  to  accompany  me  to  the  summit 
of  the  great  pyramid.     There  is  a  monument,  that  served 
as  a  castle  when  the  city  of  the  holy  men,  the  Itzaes,  was 
at  the  height  of  its  splendor.     Every  anta,  every  pillar 
and  column  of  this  edifice  is  sculptured  with  portraits  of 
warriors  and  noblemen.    Among  these  many  with  long 
beards,   whose    types  recall  vividly  to  the  mind   the 
features  of  the  Afghans. 

On  one  of  the  antse,  at  the  entrance  on  the  north  side, 
is  the  portrait  of  a  warrior  wearing  a  long,  straight, 
pointed  beard.  The  face,  like  that  of  all  the  personages 
represented  in  the  bas-reliefs,  is  in  profile.  I  placed  my 
head  against  the  stone  so  as  to  present  the  same  position 
of  my  face  as  that  of  UXAN,  and  called  the  attention  of 
my  Indians  to  the  similarity  of  his  and  my  own  features. 


55 

They  followed  every  lineament  of  the  faces  with  their 
fingers  to  the  very  point  of  the  beard,  and  soon  uttered 
an  exclamation  of  astonishment:  "Thou!  here!"  and 
slowly  scanned  again  the  features  sculptured  on  the 
stone  and  my  own. 

"So,  so,"  they  said, "  thou  too  art  one  of  our  great  men, 
who  has  been  disenchanted.  Thou,  too,  wert  a  com- 
panion of  the  great  Lord  Chaacmol.  That  is  why  thou 
didst  know  wJiere  he  was  hidden ;  and  thou  hast  come 
to  disenchant  him  also.  His  time  to  live  again  on 
earth  has  then  arrived" 

From  that  moment  every  word  of  mine  was  implicitly 
obeyed.  They  returned  to  the  excavation,  and  worked 
with  such  a  good  will,  that  they  soon  brought  up  the 
ponderous  statue  to  the  surface. 

A  few  days  later  some  strange  people  made  their  ap- 
pearance suddenly  and  noiselessly  in  our  midst.  They 
emerged  from  the  thicket  one  by  one.  Colonel  Don 
Felipe  Diaz,  then  commander  of  the  troops  covering 
the  eastern  frontier,  had  sent  me,  a  couple  of  days  pre- 
vious, a  written  notice,  that  I  still  preserve  in  my  power, 
that  tracks  of  hostile  Indians  had  been  discovered  by 
his  scouts,  advising  me  to  keep  a  sharp  look  out,  lest 
they  should  surprise  us.  Now,  to  be  on  the  look  out  in 
the  midst  of  a  thick,  well-nigh  impenetrable  forest,  is  a 
rather  difficult  thing  to  do,  particularly  with  only  a  few 
men,  and  where  there  is  no  road ;  yet  all  being  a  road  for 
the  enemy.  Warning  my  men  that  danger  was  near, 
and  to  keep  their  loaded  rifles  at  hand,  we  continued 
our  work  as  usual,  leaving  the  rest  to  destiny. 

On  seeing  the  strangers,  my  men  rushed  on  their 
weapons,  but  noticing  that  the  visitors  had  no  guns,  but 
only  their  machetes,  I  gave  orders  not  to  hurt  them.  At 
their  head  was  a  very  old  man :  his  hair  was  gray,  his 
eyes  blue  with  age.  He  would  not  come  near  the  statue, 
but  stood  at  a  distance  as  if  awe-struck,  hat  in  hand, 
looking  at  it.  After  a  long  time  he  broke  out,  speaking 
to  his  own  people :  uThis,  boys,  is  one  of  the  great  men 


56 

we  speak  to  you  about."  Then  the  young  men  came 
forward,  with  great  respect  kneeled  at  the  feet  of  the 
statue,  and  pressed  their  lips  against  them. 

Putting  aside  my  own  weapons,  being  consequently 
unarmed,  I  went  to  the  old  man,  and  asked  him  to  ac- 
company me  up  to  the  castle,  offering  my  arm  to  ascend 
the  100  steep  and  crumbling  stairs.  I  again  placed 
my  face  near  that  of  my  stone  Sosis,  and  again  the  same 
scene  was  enacted  as  with  my  own  men,  with  this  differ- 
ence, that  the  strangers  fell  on  their  knees  before  me, 
and,  in  turn,  kissed  my  hand.  The  old  man  after  a 
while,  eyeing  me  respectfully,  but  steadily,  asked  me : 
"  Rememberest  thou  what  happened  to  thee  whilst  thou 
wert  enchanted  ?"  It  was  quite  a  difficult  question  to 
answer,  and  yet  retain  my  superior  position,  for  I  did 
not  know  how  many  people  might  be  hidden  in  the 
thicket.  "Well,  father,"  I  asked  him,  "dreamest  thou 
sometimes?"  He  nodded  his  head  in  an  affirmative 
manner.  "And  when  thou  awakest,  dost  thou  remem- 
ber distinctly  thy  dreams  ? "  "Ma"  no !  was  the  answer. 
"  Well,  father,"  I  continued,  "so  it  happened  with  me. 
I  do  not  remember  what  took  place  during  the  time  I 
was  enchanted."  This  answer  seemed  to  satisfy  him. 
I  again  gave  him  my  hand  to  help  him  down  the  pre- 
cipitous stairs,  at  the  foot  of  which  we  separated, 
wishing  them  God-speed,  and  warning  them  not  to  go 
too  near  the  villages  on  their  way  back  to  their  homes, 
as  people  were  aware  of  their  presence  in  the  country. 
Whence  they  came,  I  ignore ;  where  they  went,  I  don't 
know. 

Circumcision  was  a  rite  in  usage  among  the  Egyptians 
since  very  remote  times.  The  Mayas  also  practiced  it,  if 
we  are  to  credit  Fray  Luis  de  Urreta  ;  yet  Cogolludo  af- 
firms^that  in  his  days  the  Indians  denied  observing  such 
custom.  The  outward  sign  of  utmost  reverence  seems 
to  have  been  identical  amongst  both  the  Mayas  and  the 
Egyptians.  It  consisted  in  throwing  the  left  arm  across 
the  chest,  resting  the  left  hand  on  the  right  shoulder ;  or 


57 

the  right  arm  across  the  chest,  the  right  hand  resting  on 
the  left  shoulder.  Sir  Gardner  Wilkinson,  in  his  work 
above  quoted,  reproduces  various  figures  in  that  attitude ; 
and  Mr.  Champollion  Figeac,  in  his  book  on  Egypt,  tells 
us  that  in  some  cases  even  the  mummies  of  certain  emi- 
nent men  were  placed  in  their  coffins  with  the  arms 
in  that  position.  That  this  same  mark  of  respect  was 
in  use  amongst  the  Mayas  there  can  be  no  possible 
doubt.  We  see  it  in  the  figures  represented  in  the  act  of 
worshiping  the  mastodon's  head,  on  the  west  fagade 
of  the  monument  that  forms  the  north  wing  of  the 
palace  and  museum  at  Chichen-Itza.  We  see  it  repeatedly 
in  the  mural  paintings  in  Chaacmol's  funeral  chamber ; 
on  the  slabs  sculptured  with  the  representation  of  a  dy- 
ing warrior,  that  adorned  the  mausoleum  of  that  chief- 
tain. Cogolludo  mentions  it  in  his  history  of  Yucatan, 
as  being  common  among  the  aborigines:  and  my  own 
men  have  used  it  to  show  their  utmost  respect  to  persons 
or  objects  they  consider  worthy  of  their  veneration. 
Among  my  collection  of  photographs  are  several  plates 
in  which  some  of  the  men  have  assumed  that  position  of 
the  arms  spontaneously. 

The  sistrum  was  an  instrument  used  by  Egyptians  and 
Mayas  alike  during  the  performance  of  their  religious 
rites  and  acts  of  worship.  I  have  seen  it  used  lately  by 
natives  in  Yucatan  in  the  dance  forming  part  of  the  wor- 
ship of  the  sun.  The  Egyptians  enclosed  the  brains,  en- 
trails and  viscera  of  the  deceased  in  funeral  vases,  called 
canopas,  that  were  placed  in  the  tombs  with  the  coffin. 
When  I  opened  Chaacmors  mausoleum  I  found,  as  I 
have  already  said,  two  stone  urns,  the  one  near  the  head 
containing  the  remains  of  brains,  that  near  the  chest 
those  of  the  heart  and  other  viscera.  This  fact  would 
tend  to  show  again  a  similar  custom  among  the  Mayas 
and  Egyptians,  who,  besides,  placed  with  the  body  an 
empty  vase— symbol  that  the  deceased  had  been  judged 
and  found  righteous.  •  This  vase,  held  between  the  hands 
of  the  statue  of  Chaacmol,  is  also  found  held  in  the  same 


58 

manner  by  many  other  statues  of  different  individuals. 
It  was  customary  with  the  Egyptians  to  deposit  in  the 
tombs  the  implements  of  the  trade  or  profession  of  the 
deceased.  So  also  with  the  Mayas — if  a  priest,  they 
placed  books  ;  if  a  warrior,  his  weapons  ;  if  a  mechanic, 
the  tools  of  his  art, 

The  Egyptians  adorned  the  tombs  of  the  rich — which 
generally  consisted  of  one  or  two  chambers — with  sculp- 
tures and  paintings  reciting  the  names  and  the  history 
of  the  life  of  the  personage  to  whom  the  tomb  belonged. 
The  mausoleum  of  Chaacmol,  interiorly,  was  composed  of 
three  different  superposed  apartments,  with  their  floors 
of  concrete  well  leveled,  polished  and  painted  with  yel- 
low ochre  ;  and  exteriorly  was  adorned  with  magnificent 
bas-reliefs,  representing  his  totem  and  that  of  his  wife- 
dying  warriors — the  whole  being  surrounded  by  the 
image  of  a  feathered  serpent — Can,  his  family  name, 
whilst  the  walls  of  the  two  apartments,  or  funeral  cham- 
bers, in  the  monument  raised  to  his  memory,  were  deco- 
rated with  fresco  paintings,  representing  not  only  Chaac- 
mol's  own  life,  but  the  manners,  customs,  mode  of 
dressing  of  his  contemporaries ;  as  those  of  the  different 
nations  with  which  they  were  in  communication:  dis- 
tinctly recognizable  by  their  type,  stature  and  other  pe- 
culiarities. The  portraits  of  the  great  and  eminent  men 
of  his  time  are  sculptured  on  the  jambs  and  lintels  of 
the  doors,  represented  life-size. 

In  Egypt  it  was  customary  to  paint  the  sculptures, 
either  on  stone  or  wood,  with  bright  colors — yellow,  blue, 
red,  green  predominating.  In  Mayab  the  same  custom 
prevailed,  and  traces  of  these  colors  are  still  easily  dis- 
cernible on  the  sculptures;  whilst  they  are  still  very 
brilliant  on  the  beautiful  and  highly  polished  stucco  of 
the  walls  in  the  rooms  of  certain  monuments  at  Chich- 
en-Itza.  The  Maya  artists  seem  to  have  used  mostly 
vegetable  colors  ;  yet  they  also  employed  ochres  as  pig- 
ments, and  cinnabar — we  having  found  such  metallic  colors 
in  Chaacinors  mausoleum.  Mrs.  Le  Plongeon  still  pre- 


59 

serves  some  in  her  possession.  From  where  they  pro- 
cured it  is  more  than  we  can  tell  at  present. 

The  wives  and  daughters  of  the  Egyptian  kings  and 
noblemen  considered  it  an  honor  to  assist  in  the  temples 
and  religious  ceremonies:  one  of  their  principal  duties 
being  to  play  the  sistrum/ 

We  find  that  in  Yucatan,  Nicte  (flower)  the  sister  of 
Chaacmol,  assisted  her  elder  brother,  Cay,  the  pontiff, 
in  the  sanctuary,  her  name  being  always  associated  with 
his  in  the  inscriptions  which  adorn  the  western  fa9ade  of 
that  edifice  at  Uxmal,  as  that  of  her  sister,  Mo,  is  with 
Chaacmol' s  in  some  of  the  monuments  at  Chichen. 

Cogolludo,  when  speaking  of  the  priestesses,  virgins 
of  the  sun,  mentions  a  tradition  that  seems  to  refer  to 
Nicte,  stating  that  the  daughter  of  a  king,  who  remained 
during  all  her  life  in  the  temple,  obtained  after  her  death 
the  honor  of  apotheosis,  and  was  worshiped  under  the 
name  of  Zuhuy-Kdk  (the  fire-virgin),  and  became  the 
goddess  of  the  maidens,  who  were  recommended  to  her 
care. 

As  in  Egypt,  the  kings  and  heroes  were  worshiped  in 
Mayab  after  their  death ;  temples  and  pyramids  being 
raised  to  their  memory.  Cogolludo  pretends  that  the 
lower  classes  adored  fishes,  snakes,  tigers  and  other  ab- 
ject animals,  "  even  the  devil  himself,  which  appeared  to 
them  in  horrible  forms"  ("  Historiade  Yucatan,"  book 
IV.,  chap,  vii.) 

Judging  from  the  sculptures  and  mural  paintings,  the 
higher  classes  in  Mayab  wore,  in  very  remote  ages, 
dresses  of  quite  an  elaborate  character.  Their  under 
garment  consisted  of  short  trowsers,  reaching  the  middle 
of  the  thighs.  At  times  these  trowsers  were  highly 
ornamented  with  embroideries  and  fringes,  as  they 
formed  their  only  article  of  clothing  when  at  home  ;  over 
these  they  wore  a  kind  of  kilt,  very  similar  to  that  used 
by  the  inhabitants  of  the  Highlands  in  Scotland.  It  was 
fastened  to  the  waist  with  wide  ribbons,  tied  behind  in 
a  knot  forming  a  large  bow,  the  ends  of  which  reached 


60 

to  the  ankles.  Their  shoulders  were  covered  with  a  tip- 
pet falling  to  the  elbows,  and  fastened  on  the  chest  by 
means  of  a  brooch.  Their  feet  were  protected  by  sandals, 
kept  in  place  by  ropes  or  ribbons,  passing  between  the 
big  toe  and  the  next,  and  between  the  third  and  fourth, 
then  brought  up  so  as  to  encircle  the  ankles.  They  were 
tied  in  front,  forming  a  bow  on  the  instep.  Some  wore 
leggings,  others  garters  and  anklets  made  of  feathers, 
generally  yellow ;  sometimes,  however,  they  may  have 
been  of  gold.  Their  head  gears  were  of  different  kinds, 
according  to  their  rank  and  dignity.  Warriors  seem  to 
have  used  wide  bands,  tied  behind  the  head  with  two 
knots,  as  we  see  in  the  statue  of  Chaacmol,  and  in  the 
bas-reliefs  that  adorn  the  queen's  chamber  at  Chichen. 
The  king's  coiffure  was  a  peaked  cap,  that  seems  to 
have  served  as  model  for  the  pschent,  that  symbol  of 
domination  over  the  lower  Egypt ;  with  this  difference, 
however,  that  in  Mayab  the  point  formed  the  front,  and 
in  Egypt  the  back. 

The  common  people  in  Mayab,  as  in  Egypt,  were  in- 
deed little  troubled  by  their  garments.  These  consisted 
merely  of  a  simple  girdle  tied  round  the  loins,  the  ends 
falling  before  and  behind  to  the  middle  of  the  thighs. 
Sometimes  they  also  used  the  short  trowsers  ;  and,  when 
at  work,  wrapped  a  piece  of  cloth  round  their  loins,  long 
enough  to  cover  their  legs  to  the  knees.  This  costume 
was  completed  by  wearing  a  square  cloth,  tied  on  one  of 
the  shoulders  by  two  of  its  corners.  It  served  as  cloak. 
To-day  the  natives  of  Yucatan  wear  the  same  dress, 
with  but  slight  modifications.  While  the  aborigines  of 
the  Tierra  de  Guerra,  who  still  preserve  the  customs  of 
their  forefathers,  untainted  by  foreign  admixture,  use  the 
same  garments,  of  their  own  manufacture,  that  we  see 
represented  in  the  bas-reliefs  of  Chichen  and  Uxmal, 
and  in  the  mural  paintings  of  Mayab  and  Egypt. 

Divination  by  the  inspection  of  the  entrails  of  victims, 
and  the  study  of  omens  were  considered  by  the  Egyptians 
as  important  branches  of  learning.  The  soothsayers 


61 

formed  a  respected  order  of  the  priesthood.  From  the 
mural  paintings  at  Chichen,  and  from  the  works  of 
the  chroniclers,  we  learn  that  the  Mayas  also  had  several 
manners  of  consulting  fate.  One  of  the  modes  was  by  the 
inspection  of  the  enti  ails  of  victims  ;  another  by  the  man- 
ner of  the  cracking  of  the  shell  of  a  turtle  or  armadillo 
by  the  action  of  fire,  as  among  the  Chinese.  (In  the 
Hong-fan  or  "the  great  and  sublime  doctrine,"  one  of 
the  books  of  the  Chou-king,  the  ceremonies  of  Pou  and 
Chi  are  described  at  length).  The  Mayas  had  also  their 
astrologers  and  prophets.  Several  prophecies,  purport- 
ing to  have  been  made  by  their  priests,  concerning  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel  among  the  people  of  Mayab,  have 
reached  us,  preserved  in  the  works  of  Landa,  Lizana,  and 
Cogolludo.  There  we  also  read  that,  even  at  the  time  of 
the  Spanish  conquest,  they  came  from  all  parts  of  the 
country,  and  congregated  at  the  shrine  of  Kinich-kakmo, 
the  deified  daughter  of  CAN,  to  listen  to  the  oracles  de- 
livered by  her  through  the  mouths  of  her  priests  and 
consult  her  on  future  events.  By  the  examination  of  the 
mural  paintings,  we  know  that  animal  magnetism  was 
understood  and  practiced  by  the  priests,  who,  themselves, 
seem  to  have  consulted  clairvoyants. 

The  learned  priests  of  Egypt  are  said  to  have  made 
considerable  progress  in  astronomical  sciences. 

The  gnomon,  discovered  by  me  in  December,  last  year, 
in  the  ruined  city  of  Mayapan,  would  tend  to  prove  that 
the  learned  men  of  Mayab  were  not  only  close  observers 
of  the  march  of  the  celestial  bodies  and  good  mathema- 
ticians ;  but  that  their  attainments  in  astronomy  were  not 
inferior  to  those  of  their  brethren  of  Chaldea.  Effectively 
the  construction  of  the  gnomon  shows  that  they  had 
found  the  means  of  calculating  the  latitude  of  places, 
that  they  knew  the  distance  of  the  solsticeal  points  from 
the  equator ;  they  had  found  that  the  greatest  angle  of 
declination  of  the  sun,  23°  27',  occurred  when  that  lumi- 
nary reached  the  tropics  where,  during  nearly  three  days, 
said  angle  of  declination  does  not  vary,  for  which  reason 
they  said  that  the  sun  had  arrived  at  his  resting  place. 


The  Egyptians,  it  is  said,  in  very  remote  ages,  divided 
the  year  by  lunations,  as  the  Mayas,  who  divided  their 
civil  year  into  eighteen  months,  of  twenty  days  ,  that 
they  called  u— moon — to  which  they  added  five  supple- 
mentary days,  that  they  considered  unlucky.  From 
an  epoch  so  ancient  that  it  is  referred  to  the  fabulous 
time  of  their  history,  the  Egyptians  adopted  the  solar 
--year,  dividing  it  into  twelve  months,  of  thirty  days,  to 
which  they  added,  at  the  end  of  the  last  month,  called 
Mesore,  five  days,  named  Epact. 

By  a  most  remarkable  coincidence,  the  Egyptians,  as 
the  Mayas,  considered  these  additive  five  days  unlucky. 

Besides  this  solar  year  they  had  a  sideral  or  sothic 
year,  composed  of  365  days  and  6  hours,  which  corres- 
ponds exactly  to  the  Mayas  sacred  year,  that  Landa 
tells  us  was  also  composed  of  365  days  and  6  hours ; 
which  they  represented  in  the  gnomon  of  Mayapan  by 
the  line  that  joins  the  centers  of  the  stela  that  forms  it. 

The  Egyptians,  in  their  computations,  calculated  by  a 
system  of  fives  and  fens  ;  the  Mayas  by  a  system  of  fives 
and  twenties,  to  four  hundred.  Their  sacred  number  ap- 
pears to  have  been  13  from  the  remotest  antiquity,  but 
SEVEN  seems  to  have  been  a  mystic  number  among  them  as 
among  the  Hindoos,  Aryans,  Chaldeans,  Egyptians,  and 
other  nations. 

The  Egyptians  made  use  of  a  septenary  system  in  the 
arrangement  of  the  grand  gallery  in  the  center  of  the 
great  pyramid.  Each  side  of  the  wall  is  made  of  seven 
courses  of  finely  polished  stones,  the  one  above  over- 
lapping that  below,  thus  forming  the  triangular  ceiling 
common  to  all  the  edifices  in  Yucatan.  This  gallery  is 
said  to  be  seven  times  the  height  of  the  other  passages, 
and,  as  all  the  rooms  in  Uxmal,  Chichen  and  other  places 
in  Mayab,  it  is  seven- sided.  Some  authors  pretend  to 
assume  that  this  well  marked  septenary  system  has  refer- 
ence to  the  Pleiades  or  Seven  stars.  Alcyone,  the  central 
star  of  the  group,  being,  it  is  said,  on  the  same  meridian 
as  the  pyramid,  when  it  was  constructed,  and  Alpha  of 
Draconis,  the  then  pole  star,  at  its  lower  culmination. 


But  if,  as  the  Rev.  Joseph  A.  Seiss  and  others  pre- 
tend, the  scientific  attainments  required  for  the  construc- 
tion of  such  enduring  monument  surpassed  those  of  the 
learned  men  of  Egypt,  we  must,  of  necessity,  believe  that 
the  architect  who  conceived  the  plan  and  carried  out 
its  designs  must  have  acquired  his  knowledge  from  an 
older  people,  possessing  greater  learning  than  the  priests 
of  Memphis  ;  unless  we  try  to  persuade  ourselves,  as  the 
reverend  gentleman  wishes  us  to,  that  the  great  pyramid 
was  built  under  the  direct  inspiration  of  the  Almighty. 

Nearly  all  the  monuments  of  Yucatan  bear  evidence 
that  the  Mayas  had  a  predilection  for  number  SEVEN. 
Since  we  find  that  their  artificial  mounds  were  composed 
of  seven  superposed  platforms  ;  that  the  city  of  Uxmal 
contained  seven  of  these  mounds  ;  that  the  nortli  side  of 
the  palace  of  King  CAN  was  adorned  with  seven  turrets  ; 
that  the  entwined  serpents,  his  totem,  which  adorn  the 
east  fagade  of  the  west  wing  of  this  building,  have  seven 
rattles ;  that  the  head-dress  of  kings  and  queens  were 
adorned  with  seven  blue  feathers  ;  in  a  word,  that  the 
number  SEVEN  prevails  in  all  places  and  in  everything 
where  Maya  influence  has  predominated. 

It  is  a  FACT,  and  one  that  may  not  be  altogether  de- 
void of  significance,  that  this  number  SEVEN  seems  to 
have  been  the  mystic  number  of  many  of  the  nations  of 
antiquity.  It  has  even  reached  our  times  as  such,  being 
used  as  symbol  by  several  of  the  secret  societies  existing 
among  us. 

If  we  look  back  through  the  vista  of  ages  to  the  dawn 
of  civilized  life  in  the  countries  known  as  the  old  world, 
we  find  this  number  SEVEN  among  the  Asiatic  nations  as 
well  as  in  Egypt  and  Mayab.  Effectively,  in  Babylon, 
the  celebrated  temple  of  the  seven  lights  was  made  of 
seven  stages  or  platforms.  In  the  hierarchy  of  Maz- 
deism,  the  seven  marouts,  or  genii  of  the  winds,  the 
seven  amschaspands  ;  then  among  the  Aryans  and  their 
descendants,  the  seven  horses  that  drew  the  chariot  of 
the  sun,  the  seven  apris  or  shape  of  the  flame,  the  seven 


64 

rays  of  Agni,  the  seven  manons  or  criators  of  the  Vedas; 
among  the  Hebrews,  the  seven  days  of  the  creation,  the 
seven  lamps  of  the  ark  and  of  Zacharias' s  vision,  the  seven 
branches  of  the  golden  candlestick,  the  seven  days  of 
the  feast  of  the  dedication  of  the  temple  of  Solomon, 
the  seven  years  of  plenty,  the  seven  years  of  famine  ;  in 
the  Christian  dispensation,  the  seven  churches  with  the 
seven  angels  at  their  head,  the  seven  golden .  candle- 
sticks, the  seven  seals  of  the  book,  the  seven  trumpets 
of  the  angels,  the  seven  heads  of  the  beast  that  rose 
from  the  sea,  the  seven  vials  full  of  the  wrath  of  God, 
the  seven  last  plagues  of  the  Apocalypse  ;  in  the  Greek 
mythology,  the  seven  heads  of  the  hydra,  killed  by  Her- 
cules, etc. 

The  origin  of  the  prevalence  of  that  number  SEVEN 
amongst  all  the  nations  of  earth,  even  the  most  remote 
from  each  other,  has  never  been  satisfactorily  explained, 
each  separate  people  giving  it  a  different  interpretation, 
according  to  their  belief  and  to  the  tenets  of  their  religious 
creeds.  As  far  as  the  Mayas  are  concerned,  I  think  to 
have  found  that  it  originated  with  the  seven  members  of 
CAN'S  family,  who  were  the  founders  of  the  principal 
cities  of  Mayab,  and  to  each  of  whom  was  dedicated  a 
mound  in  Uxmal  and  a  turret  in  their  palace.  Their 
names,  according  to  the  inscriptions  carved  on  the  monu- 
ments raised  by  them  at  Uxmal  and  Chichen,  were— 
CAN  (serpent)  and  ooz  (bat),  his  wife,  from  whom  were 
born  CAY  (fish),  the  pontiff ;  AAK  (turtle),  who  became 
the  governor  of  Uxmal ;  CHAACMOL  (leopard),  the  war- 
rior, who  became  the  husband  of  his  sister  Moo  (macaw), 
the  Queen  of  CMchen,  worshiped  after  her  death  at 
Izamal ;  arid  JSTiCTE  (flower),  the  priestess  who,  under 
the  name  of  Zuhuy-Kuk,  became  the  goddess  of  the 
maidens. 

The  Egyptians,  in  expressing  their  ideas  in  writing,  used 
three  different  kinds  of  characters — phonetic,  ideographic 
and  symbolic — placed  either  in  vertical  columns  or  in 
horizontal  lines,  to  be  read  from  right  to  left,  from  left 


65 

to  right,  as  indicated  by  the  position  of  the  figures  of 
men  or  animals.  So,  also,  the  Mayas  in  their  writings  em  • 
ployed  phonetic,  symbolic  and  ideographic  signs,  com- 
bining these  often,  forming  monograms  as  we  do  to-day, 
placing  them  in  such  a  manner  as  best  suited  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  ornamentation  of  the  fagade  of  the  edifices. 
At  present  we  can  only  speak  with  certainty  of  the  monu- 
mental inscriptions,  the  books  that  fell  in  the  hands  of 
the  ecclesiastics  at  the  time  of  the  conquest  having  been 
destroyed.  No  truly  genuine  written  monuments  of  the 
Mayas  are  known  to  exist,  except  those  inclosed  within 
the  sealed  apartments,  where  the  priests  and  learned 
men  of  MAYAB  hid  them  from  the  Nahualt  or  Toltec 
invaders. 

As  the  Egyptians,  they  wrote  in  vertical  columns  and 
horizontal  lines,  to  be  read  generally  from  right  to  left. 
The  space  of  this  small  essay  does  not  allow  me  to  enter 
in  more  details  ;  they  belong  naturally  to  a  work  of  dif- 
ferent nature.  Let  it  therefore  suffice,  for  the  present 
purpose,  to  state  that  the  comparative  study  of  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Mayas  led  us  to  suspect  that,  as  it  contains 
words  belonging  to  nearly  all  the  known  languages  of 
antiquity,  and  with  exactly  the  same  meaning,  in  their 
mode  of  writing  might  be  found  letters  or  characters  or 
signs  used  in  those  tongues.  Studying  with  attention  the 
photographs  made  by  us  of  the  inscriptions  of  Uxmal  and 
Chichen,  we  were  not  long  in  discovering  that  our  sur- 
mises were  indeed  correct.  The  inscriptions,  written  in 
squares  or  parallelograms,  that  might  well  have  served  as 
models  for  the  ancient  hieratic  Chaldeans,  of  the  time  of 
King  Uruck,  seem  to  contain  ancient  Chaldee,  Egyptian 
and  Etruscan  characters,  together  with  others  that  seem 
to  be  purely  Mayab. 

Applying  these  known  characters  to  the  decipherment 
of  the  inscriptions,  giving  them  their  accepted  value,  we 
soon  found  that  the  language  in  which  they  are  written 
is,  in  the  main,  the  vernacular  of  the  aborigines  of 
Yucatan  and  other  parts  of  Central  America  to-day.  Of 


66 

course,  the  original  mother  tongue  having  suffered  some 
alterations,  in  consequence  of  changes  in  customs  induced 
by  time,  invasions,  intercourse  with  other  nations,  and 
the  many  other  natural  causes  that  are  known  to  affect 
man's  speech. 

The  Mayas  and  the  Egyptians  had  many  signs  and 
characters  identical ;  possessing  the  same  alphabetical 
and  symbolical  value  in  both  nations.  Among  the  sym- 
bolical, I  may  cite  a  few :  water,  country  or  region,  king, 
Lord,  offerings,  splendor,  the  various  emblems  of  the 
sun  and  many  others.  Among  the  alphabetical,  a  very 
large  number  of  the  so-called  Demotic,  by  Egyptologists, 
are  found  even  in  the  inscription  of  the  Akaboib  at 
Chichen  ;  and  not  a  few  of  the  most  ancient  Egyptian 
hieroglyphs  in  the  mural  inscriptions  at  Uxmal.  In 
these  I  have  been  able  to  discover  the  Egyptian  charac- 
ters corresponding  to  our  own. 

A  a,  B,  C,  CH  or  K,  D,  T,  I,  L,  M,  N,  H,  P,  TZ,  PP,  U, 
OO,  X,  having  the  same  sound  and  value  as  in  the 
Spanish  language,  with  the  exception  of  the  K,  TZ,  PP 
and  X,  which  are  pronounced  in  a  way  peculiar  to  the 
Mayas.  The  inscriptions  also  contain  these  letters, 
A,  I,  X  and  PP  identical  to  the  corresponding  in  the 
Etruscan  alphabet.  The  finding  of  the  value  of  these 
characters  has  enabled  me  to  decipher,  among  other 
things,  the  names  of  the  founders  of  the  city  of  UXMAL  ; 
as  that  of  the  city  itself.  This  is  written  apparently  in 
two  different  ways  :  whilst,  in  fact,  the  sculptors  have 
simply  made  use  of  two  homophone  signs,  notwith- 
standing dissimilar,  of  the  letter  M.  As  to  the  name  of 
the  founders,  not  only  are  they  written  in  alphabetical 
characters,  but  also  in  ideographic,  since  they  are  accom- 
panied in  many  instances  by  the  totems  of  the  personages: 
e.  g  for  AAK,  which  means  turtle,  is  the  image  of  a 
turtle  ;  for  CAY  (fish),  the  image  of  a  fish  ;  for  Chaacmol 
(leopard)  the  image  of  a  leopard ;  and  so  on,  precluding 
the  possibility  of  misinterpretation. 

Having  found  that  the  language  of  the  inscriptions  was 


67 

Maya,  of  course  I  had  no  difficulty  in  giving  to  each 
letter  its  proper  phonetic  value,  since,  as  I  have  already 
said,  Maya  is  still  the  vernacular  of  the  people. 

I  consider  that  the  few  facts  brought  together  will  suf- 
fice at  present  to  show,  if  nothing  else,  a  strange  simi- 
larity in  the  workings  of  the  mind  in  these  two  nations. 
But  if  these  remarkable  coincidences  are  not  merely 
freaks  of  hazard,  we  will  be  compelled  to  admit  that  one 
people  must  have  learned  it  from  the  other.  Then  will 
naturally  arise  the  questions,  Which  the  teacher? 
Which  the  pupil  ?  The  answer  will  not  only  solve  an 
ethnological  problem,  but  decide  the  question  of  priority. 

I  will  now  briefly  refer  to  the  myth  of  Osiris,  the  son 
of  Seb  and  Nut,  the  brother  of  Aroeris,  the  elder  ITorus, 
of  Typlio,  of  Is  is,  and  of  Neplitliis,  named  also  NIKE. 
The  authors  have  given  numerous  explanations,  result  of 
fancy  ;  of  the  mythological  history  of  that  god,  famous 
throughout  Egypt.  They  made  him  a  personification  of 
the  inundations  of  the  NILE  ;  Isis,  his  wife  and  sister, 
that  of  the  irrigated  portion  of  the  land  of  Egypt ;  their 
sister,  Nephthis,  that  of  the  barren  edge  of  the  desert 
occasionally  fertilized  by  the  waters  of  the  Nile ;  his 
brother  and  murderer  Tipho,  that  of  the  sea  which  swal- 
lows up  the  Nile. 

Leaving  aside  the  mythical  lores,  with  which  the  priests 
of  all  times  and  all  countries  cajole  the  credulity  of  igno- 
rant and  superstitious  people,  we  find  that  among  the 
traditions  of  the  past,  treasured  in  the  mysterious 
recesses  of  the  temples,  is  a  history  of  the  life  of  Osiris 
on  Earth.  Many  wise  men  of  our  days  have  looked  upon 
it  as  fabulous.  I  am  not  ready  to  say  whether  it  is  or  it 
is  not ;  but  this  I  can  assert,  that,  in  many  parts,  it 
tallies  marvelously  with  that  of  the  culture  hero  of  the 
Mayas. 

It  will  be  said,  no  doubt,  that  this  remarkable  simi- 
larity is  a  mere  coincidence.  But  how  are  we  to  dispose 
of  so  many  coincidences «  What  conclusion,  if  any,  are 
we  to  draw  from  this  concourse  of  so  many  strange 
similes  3 


68 

In  this  case,  I  cannot  do  better  than  to  quote,  verbatim, 
from  Sir  Gardner  Wilkinson' s  work,  chap,  xiii : 

"  Osiris,  having  become  King  of  Egypt,  applied  himself  towards  civilizing 
' '  his  countrymen,  by  turning  them  from  their  former  barbarous  course  of 
"life,  teaching  them,  moreover,  to  cultivate  and  improve  the  fruits  of  the 
"earth.  *****  With  the  same  good  disposition,  he  afterwards 
"traveled  over  the  rest  of  the  world,  inducing  the  people  every  where  to 
-'submit  to  his  discipline,  by  the  mildest  persuasion." 

The  rest  of  the  story  relates  to  the  manner  of  his  killing 
by  his  brother  Typho,  the  disposal  of  his  remains,  the 
search  instituted  by  his  wife  to  recover  the  body,  how  it 
was  stolen  again  from  her  by  TypTio,  who  cut  him  to 
pieces,  scattering  them  over  the  earth,  of  the  final  defeat 
of  Typho  by  Osiris' s  son,  Horus. 

Reading  the  description,  above  quoted,  of  the  endea- 
vors of  Osiris  to  civilize  the  world,  who  would  not  imagine 
to  be  perusing  the  traditions  of  the  deeds  of  the  culture 
heroes  Kukulean  and  Quetzalcoatl  of  the  Mayas  and  of 
the  Aztecs?  Osiris  was  particularly  worshiped  at 
Philo,  where  the  history  of  his  life  is  curiously  illustrated 
in  the  sculptures  of  a  small  retired  chamber,  lying  nearly 
over  the  western  adytum  of  the  temple,  just  as  that  of 
Chaacmol  in  the  mural  paintings  of  his  funeral  chamber, 
the  bas-reliefs  of  what  once  was  his  mausoleum,  in  those 
of  the  queen's  chamber  and  of  her  box  in  the  tennis 
court  at  Chichen. 

"  The  mysteries  of  Osiris  were  divided  into  the  greater  and  less  mysteries. 
"Before  admission  into  the  former,  it  was  necessary  that  the  initiated 
"should  have  passed  through  all  the  gradations  of  the  latter.  But  to  merit 
"  this  great  honor,  much  was  expected  of  the  candidate,  and  many  even  of 
"the  priesthood  were  unable  to  obtain  it.  Besides  the  proofs  of  a  virtuous 
"life,  other  recommendations  were  required,  and  to  be  admitted  to  all  the 
"  grades  of  the  higher  mysteries  was  the  greatest  honor  to  which  any  one 
"could  aspire.  It  was  from  these  that  the  mysteries  of  Eleusis  were  bor- 
" rowed."  Wilkinson,  chap.  xiii. 

In  Mayab  there  also  existed  mysteries,  as  proved  by 
symbols  discovered  in  the  month  of  June  last  by  myself 
in  the  monument  generally  called  the  Dwarf's  House, 
at  Uxmal.  It  seemed  that  the  initiated  had  to  pass 


through  different  gradations  to  reach  the  highest  or  third ; 
if  we  are  to  judge  by  the  number  of  rooms  dedicated  to 
their  performance,  and  the  disposition  of  said  rooms. 
The  strangest  part,  perhaps,  of  this  discovery  is  the 
information  it  gives  us  that  certain  signs  and  symbols 
were  used  by  the  affiliated,  that  are  perfectly  identical  to 
those  used  among  the  masons  in  their  symbolical  lodges. 
I  have  lately  published  in  Harper's  Weekly,  a  full  de- 
scription of  the  building,  with  plans  of  the  same,  and 
drawings  of  the  signs  and  symbols  existing  in  it.  These 
secret  societies  exist  still  among  the  Zunis  and  other 
Pueblo  Indians  of  New  Mexico,  according  to  the  rela- 
tions of  Mr.  Frank  H.  Gushing,  a  gentleman  sent  by  the 
Smithsonian  Institution  to  investigate  their  customs  and 
history.  In  order  to  comply  with  the  mission  intrusted 
to  him,  Mr.  Gushing  has  caused  his  adoption  in  the  tribe 
of  the  Zunis,  whose  language  he  has  learned,  whose 
habits  he  has  adopted.  Among  the  other  remarkable 
things  he  has  discovered  is  "the  existence  of  twelve 
"  sacred  orders,  with  their  priests  and  their  secret  rites  as 
"carefully  guarded  as  the  secrets  of  freemasonry,  an 
"  institution  to  which  these  orders  have  a  strange  resem- 
"  blance."  (From  the  New  York  Times.) 

If  from  Egypt  we  pass  to  Nubia,  we  find  that  the  pecu- 
liar battle  ax  of  the  Mayas  was  also  used  by  the  warriors 
of  that  country;  whilst  many  of  the  customs  of  the  inhabit- 
ants of  equatorial  Africa,  as  described  by  Mr.  DuCnaillu 
in  the  relation  of  his  voyage  to  the  "  Land  of  Ashango," 
so  closely  resemble  those  of  the  aborigines  of  Yucatan 
as  to  suggest  that  intimate  relations  must  have  existed, 
in  very  remote  ages,  between  their  ancestors ;  if  the 
admixture  of  African  blood,  clearly  discernible  still, 
among  the  natives  of  certain  districts  of  the  peninsula, 
did  not  place  that  fact  without  the  peradventure  of  a 
doubt.  We  also  see  figures  in  the  mural  paintings,  at 
Chichen,  with  strongly  marked  African  features. 

We  learned  by  the  discovery  of  the  statue  of  Chaacmol, 
and  that  of  the  priestess  found  by  me  at  the  foot  of  the 


70 

altar  in  front  of  the  shrine  of  Ix-cuina,  the  Maya 
Venus,  situated  at  the  south  end  of  Isla  Mugeres,  it  was 
customary  with  persons  of  high  rank  to  file  their  teeth 
in  sharp  points  like  a  saw.  We  read  in  the  chronicles  that 
this  fashion  still  prevailed  after  the  Spanish  conquest ; 
and  then  by  little  and  little  fell  into  disuse.  Travelers 
Jells  us  that  it  is  yet  in  vogue  among  many  of  the  tribes 
in  the  interior  of  South  America;  particularly  those  whose 
names  seem  to  connect  with  the  ancient  Caribs  or  Carians. 

Du  Chaillu  asserts  that  the  Ashangos,  those  of  Otamo, 
the  Apossos,  the  Fans,  and  many  other  tribes  of  equator- 
ial Africa,  consider  it  a  mark  of  beauty  to  file  their  front 
teeth  in  a  sharp  point.  He  presents  the  Fans  as  con- 
firmed cannibals.  We  are  told,  and  the  bas-reliefs  on 
ChaacmoPs  mausoleum  prove  it,  that  the  Mayas  de- 
voured the  hearts  of  their  fallen  enemies.  It  is  said  that, 
on  certain  grand  occasions,  after  offering  the  hearts  of 
their  victims  to  the  idols,  they  abandoned  the  bodies  to 
the  people,  who  feasted  upon  them.  But  it  must  be  noticed 
that  these  last-mentioned  customs  seemed  to  have  been 
introduced  in  the  country  by  the  Nahualts  and  Aztecs ; 
since,  as  yet,  we  have  found  nothing  in  the  mural  paint- 
ings to  cause  us  to  believe  that  the  Mayas  indulged  in 
such  barbaric  repasts,  beyond  the  eating  of  their  enemies' 
hearts. 

The  Mayas  were,  and  their  descendants  are  still,  con- 
firmed believers  in  witchcraft.  In  December,  last  year, 
being  at  the  hacienda  of  X-Kanchacan,  where  are  situated 
the  ruins  of  the  ancient  city  of  Mayapan,  a  sick  man  was 
brought  to  me.  He  came  most  reluctantly,  stating  that 
he  knew  what  was  the  matter  with  him  :  that  he  was 
doomed  to  die  unless  the  spell  was  removed.  He  was 
emaciated,  seemed  to  suffer  from  malarial  fever,  then 
prevalent  in  the  place,  and  from  the  presence  of  tape- 
worm. I  told  him  I  could  restore  him  to  health  if  he 
would  heed  my  advice.  The  fellow  stared  at  me  for  some 
time,  trying  to  fiod  out,  probably,  if  I  was  a  stronger 
wizard  than  the  H-Men  who  had  bewitched  him.  He 


n 

must  have  failed  to  discover  on  my  face  the  proverbial 
distinctive  marks  great  sorcerers  are  said  to  possess;  for, 
with  an  incredulous  grin,  stretching  his  thin  lips  tighter 
over  his  teeth,  he  simply  replied:  "No  use — I  am  be- 
witched— there  is  no  remedy  for  me." 

Mr.  Du  Chaillu,  speaking  of  the  superstitions  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Equatorial  Africa,  says:  "The  greatest 
"  curse  of  the  whole  country  is  the  belief  in  sorcery  or 
"witchcraft.  If  the  African  is  once  possessed  with  the 
"belief  that  he  is  bewitched  his  whole  nature  seems  to 
"change.  He  becomes  suspicious  of  his  dearest  friends. 
"He  fancies  himself  sick,  and  really  often  becomes  sick 
"through  his  fears.  At  least  seventy-five  per  cent,  of 
"the  deaths  in  all  the  tribes  are  murders  for  supposed 
"sorcery."  In  that  they  differ  from  the  natives  of 
Yucatan,  who  respect  wizards  because  of  their  supposed 
supernatural  powers. 

From  the  most  remote  antiquity,  as  we  learn  from  the 
writings  of  the  chroniclers,  in  all  sacred  ceremonies  the 
Mayas  used  to  make  copious  libations  with  Balche.  To- 
day the  aborigines  still  use  it  in  the  celebrations 
of  their  ancient  rites.  Balche  is  a  liquor  made  from  the 
bark  of  a  tree  called  Balche,  soaked  in  water,  mixed 
with  honey  and  left  to  ferment.  It  is  their  beverage  par 
excellence.  The  nectar  drank  by  the  God  of  Greek 
Mythology. 

Du  Chaillu,  speaking  of  the  recovery  to  health  of  the 
King  of  Mayo\Q,  a  city  in  which  he  resided  for  some 
time,  says :  "Next  day  he  was  so  much  elated  with  the 
"improvement  in  his  health  that  he  got  tipsy  on  a  fer- 
"mented  beverage  which  he  had  prepared  two  days  be- 
"fore  he  had  fallen  ill,  and  which  he  made  by  mixing 
"honey  and  water,  and  adding  to  it  pieces  of  bark  of 
"a  certain  tree"  (Journey  to  Ashango  Land,  page  188.) 

I  will  remark  here  that,  by  a  strange  coincidence,  we 
not  only  find  that  the  inhabitants  of  Equatorial  Africa 
have  customs  identical  with  the  MAYAS,  but  that  the 
name  of  one  of  their  cities  MAYO&?,  seems  to  be  a  corrup- 
tion of  MAYAB. 


72 

The  Africans  make  offerings  upon  the  graves  of  their 
departed  friends,  where  they  deposit  furniture,  dress 
and  food — and  sometimes  slay  slaves,  men  and  women, 
over  the  graves  of  kings  and  chieftains,  with  the  belief 
that  their  spirits  join  that  of  him  in  whose  honor  they 
have  been  sacrificed. 

I  have  already  said  that  it  was  customary  with  the 
\Mayas  to  place  in  the  tombs  part  of  the  riches  of  the  de- 
ceased and  the  implements  of  his  trade  or  profession ; 
and  that  the  great  quantity  of  blood  found  scattered 
round  the  slab  on  which  the  statue  of  Chaacmol  is  reclin- 
ing would  tend  to  suggest  that  slaves  were  sacrificed  at 
his  funeral. 

The  Mayas  of  old  were  wont  to  abandon  the  house 
where  a  person  had  died.  Many  still  observe  that  same 
custom  when  they  can  afford  to  do  so ;  for  they  believe 
that  the  spirit  of  the  departed  hovers  round  it. 

The  Africans  also  abandon  their  houses,  remove  even 
the  site  of  their  villages  when  death  frequently  occur ; 
for,  say  they,  the  place  is  no  longer  good ;  and  they  fear 
the  spirits  of  those  recently  deceased. 

Among  the  musical  instruments  used  by  the  Mayas 
there  were  two  kinds  of  drums — the  Turikul  and  the 
Zacatan.  They  are  still  used  hy  the  aborigines  in  their 
religious  festivals  and  dances. 

The  Turikul  is  a  cylinder  hollowed  from  the  trunk  of  a 
tree,  so  as  to  leave  it  about  one  inch  in  thickness  all 
round.  It  is  generally  about  four  feet  in  length.  On  one 
side  two  slits  are  cut,  so  as  to  leave  between  them  a  strip 
of  about  four  inches  in  width,  to  within  six  inches  from 
the  ends  ;  this  strip  is  divided  in  the  middle,  across,  so 
as  to  form,  as  it  were,  tongues.  It  is  by  striking  on  those 
tongues  with  two  balls  of  india-rubber,  attached  to  the 
end  of  sticks,  that  the  instrument  is  played.  The  volume 
of  sound  produced  is  so  great  that  it  can  be  heard,  is  is 
said,  at  a  distance  of  six  miles  in  calm  weather-  The 
Zacatan  is  another  sort  of  drum,  also  hollowed  from  the 
trunk  of  a  tree.  This  is  opened  at  both  ends.  On  one  end 


73 

a  piece  of  skin  is  tightly  stretched.  It  is  by  beating  on 
the  skin  with  the  hand,  the  instrument  being  supported 
between  the  legs  of  the  drummer,  in  a  slanting  position, 
that  it  is  played. 

Du  Chaillu,  Stanley  and  other  travelers  in  Africa  tell 
us  that,  in  case  of  danger  and  to  call  the  clans  together, 
the  big  war  drum  is  beaten,  and  is  heard  many  miles 
around.  Du  Chaillu  asserts  having  seen  one  of  these 
Ngoma,  formed  of  a  hollow  log,  nine  feet  long,  at  Apono; 
and  describes  a  Fan  drum  'which  corresponds  to  the  Za- 
catan  of  the  Mayas  as  follows  :  "  The  cylinder  was  about 
u  four  feet  long  and  ten  inches  in  diameter  at  one  end,  but 
"  only  seven  at  the  other.  The  wood  was  hollowed  out 
"  quite  thin,  and  the  skin  stretched  over  tightly.  To  beat 
"it  the  drummer  held  it  slantingly  between  his  legs,  and 
"  with  two  sticks  beats  furiously  upon  the  upper,  which 
"  was  the  larger  end  of  the  cylinder." 

We  have  the  counterpart  of  the  fetish  houses,  contain- 
ing the  skulls  of  the  ancestors  and  some  idol  or  other,  seen 
by  Du  Chaillu,  in  African  towns,  in  the  small  huts  con- 
structed at  the  entrance  of  all  the  villages  in  Yucatan. 
These  huts  or  shrines  contain  invariably  a  crucifix  ;  at 
times  the  image  of  some  saint,  often  a  skull.  The  last 
probably  to  cause  the  wayfarer  to  remember  he  has  to 
die  ;  and  that,  as  he  cannot  carry  with  him  his  worldly 
treasures  on  the  other  side  of  the  grave,  he  had  better  de- 
posit some  in  the  alms  box  firmly  fastened  at  the  foot  of 
the  cross.  Cogolludo  informs  us  these  little  shrines  were 
anciently  dedicated  to  the  god  of  lovers,  of  histrions,  of 
dancers,  and  an  infinity  of  small  idols  that  were  placed 
at  the  entrance  of  the  villages,  roads  and  staircases  of 
the  temples  and  other  parts. 

Even  the  breed  of  African  dogs  seems  to  be  the  same 
as  that  of  the  native  dogs  of  Yucatan.  Were  I  to  describe 
these  I  could  not  make  use  of  more  appropriate  words 
than  the  following  of  Du  Chaillu :  "The  pure  bred  na- 
"tivedog  is  small,  has  long  straight  ears,  long  muzzle 
"  and  long  curly  tail ;  the  hair  is  short  and  the  color  yel- 


74 

"  lowish;  the  pure  breed  being  known  by  the  clearness  of 
"his  color.  They  are  always  lean,  and  are  kept  very 
"short  of  food  by  their  owners.  *  *  *  Although 
"they  have  quick  ears;  I  don' t  think  highly  of  their 
u  scent.  They  are  good  watch  dogs." 

I  could  continue  this  list  of  similes,  but  methinks  those 
already  mentioned  as  sufficient  for  the  present  purpose. 
I  will  therefore  close  it  by  mentioning  this  strange  belief 
that  Du  Chaillu  asserts  exists  among  the  African  war- 
riors: "The  charmed  leopard? s  skin  worn  about  the 
warriors  middle  is  supposed  to  render  that  worthy  spear- 
proof." 

Let  us  now  take  a  brief  retrospective  glance  at  the 
FACTS  mentioned  in  the  foregoing  pages.  They  seem  to 
teach  us  that,  in  ages  so  remote  as  to  be  well  nigh  lost  in 
the  abyss  of  the  past,  the  Mayas  were  a  great  and  power- 
ful nation,  whose  people  had  reached  a  high  degree  of 
civilization.  That  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  form  a  cor- 
rect idea  of  their  attainments,  since  only  the  most  en- 
during monuments,  built  by  them,  have  reached  us,  re- 
sisting the  disintegrating  action  of  time  and  atmosphere. 
That,  as  the  English  of  to-day,  they  had  colonies  all  over 
the  earth  ;  for  we  find  their  name,  their  traditions,  their 
customs  and  their  language  scattered  in  many  distant 
countries,  among  whose  inhabitants  they  apparently  ex- 
ercised considerable  civilizing  influence,  since  they  gave 
names  to  their  gods,  to  their  tribes,  to  their  cities. 

We  cannot  doubt  that  the  colonists  carried  with  them 
the  old  traditions  of  the  mother  country,  and  the  history 
of  the  founders  of  their  nationality  ;  since  we  find  them 
in  the  countries  where  they  seem  to  have  established 
large  settlements  soon  after  leaving  the  land  of  their 
birth.  In  course  of  time  these  traditions  have  become 
disfigured,  wrapped,  as  it  were,  in  myths,  creations  of 
fanciful  and  untutored  imaginations,  as  in  Hindostan : 
or  devises  of  crafty  priests,  striving  to  hide  the  truth 
from  the  ignorant  mass  of  the  people,  fostering  their  su- 
perstitions, in  order  to  preserve  unbounded  and  undis- 
puted sway  over  them,  as  in  Egypt. 


75 

In  Hindostan,  for  example,  we  find  the  Maya  custom 
of  carrying  the  children  astride  on  the  hips  of  the  nurses. 
That  of  recording  the  vow  of  the  devotees,  or  of  implor- 
ing the  blessings  of  deity  by  the  imprint  of  the  hand, 
dipped  in  red  liquid,  stamped  on  the  walls  of  the 
shrines  and  palaces.  The  worship  of  the  mastodon, 
still  extant  in  India,  Siam,  Burmah,  as  in  the  worship 
of  Ganeza,  the  god  of  knowledge,  with  an  elephant 
head,  degenerated  in  that  of  the  elephant  itself. 

Still  extant  we  find  likewise  the  innate  propensity  of 
the  Mayas  to  exclude  all  foreigners  from  their  country  ; 
even  to  put  to  death  those  who  enter  their  territories 
(as  do,  even  to-day,  those  of  Santa  Cruz  and  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  Tierra  de  Guerra)  as  the  emissaries  of  Rama 
were  informed  by  the  friend  of  the  owner  of  the  country, 
the  widow  of  the  great  architect,  MAYA,  whose  name 
HEM  A  means  in  the  Maya  language  "she  who  places 
ropes  across  the  roads  to  impede  the  passage."  Even 
the  history  of  the  death  of  her  husband  MAYA,  killed 
with  a  thunderbolt,  by  the  god  Pourandara,  whose 
jealousy  was  aroused  by  his  love  for  her  and  their  mar- 
riage, recalls  that  of  Chaacmpl,  the  husband  of  Moo, 
killed  by  their  brother  Aac,  by  being  stabbed  by  him 
three  times  in  the  back  with  a  spear,  through  jealousy — 
for  he  also  loved  Moo. 

Some  Maya  tribes,  after  a  time,  probably  left  their  home 
at  the  South  of  Hindostan  and  emigrated  to  Afghanis- 
tan, where  their  descendants  still  live  and  have  villages 
on  the  North  banks  of  the  river  Kabul.  They  left  be- 
hind old  traditions,  that  they  may  have  considered  as 
mere  fantasies  of  their  poets,  and  other  customs  of  their 
forefathers.  Yet  we  know  so  little  about  the  ancient 
Afghans,  or  the  Maya  tribes  living  among  them,  that  it  is 
impossible  at  present  to  say  how  much,  if  any,  they  have 
preserved  of  the  traditions  of  their  race.  All  we  know 
for  a  certainty  is  that  many  of  the  names  of  their  vil- 
lages and  tribes  are  pure  American-Maya  words  :  that 
their  types  are  very  similar  to  the  features  of  the  bearded 


76 

men  carved  on  the  pillars  of  the  castle,  and  on  the  walls 
of  other  edifices  at  Chichen-Itza :  while  their  warlike 
habits  recall  those  of  the  Mayas,  who  fought  so  bravely 
and  tenaciously  the  Spanish  invaders. 

Some  of  the  Maya  tribes,  traveling  towards  the  west 
and  northwest,  reached  probably  the  shores  of  Ethiopia  ; 
while  others,  entering  the  Persian  Gulf,  landed  near  the 
Binbouchure  of  the  Euphrates,  and  founded  their  primi- 
tive capital  at  a  short  distance  from  it.  They  called  it 
HUT  (Hula)  city  of  guests  just  arrived — and  according 
to  Berosus  gave  themselves  the  name  of  Klialdl;  probably 
because  they  intrenched  their  city:  Kal  meaning  intrench- 
ment  in  the  American- Maya  language.  We  have  seen 
that  the  names  of  all  the  principal  deities  of  the  primitive 
Chaldeans  had  a  natural  etymology  in  that  tongue.  Such 
strange  coincidences  cannot  be  said  to  be  altogether  acci- 
dental. Particularly  when  we  consider  that  their  learned 
men  were  designated  as  MAGI,  (Mayas)  and  their  Chief 
Rob-Mag,  meaning,  in  Maya,  the  old  man;  and  were  great 
architects,  mathematicians  and  astronomers.  As  again 
we  know  of  them  but  imperfectly,  we  cannot  tell  what 
traditions  they  had  preserved  of  the  birthplace  of  their 
forefathers.  But  by  the  inscriptions  on  the  tablets  or 
bricks,  found  at  Mugheir  and  Warka,  we  know  for  a 
certainty  that,  in  the  archaic  writings,  they  formed  their 
characters  of  straight  lines  of  uniform  thickness  ;  and  in- 
closed their  sentences  in  squares  or  parallelograms,  as 
did  the  founders  of  the  ruined  cities  of  Yucatan.  Arid 
from  the  signet  cylinder  of  King  Urukh,  that  their  mode 
of  dressing  was  identical  with  that  of  many  personages 
represented  in  the  mural  paintings  at  Chichen-Itza. 

We  have  traced  the  MAYAS  again  on  the  shores  of  Asia 
Minor,  where  the  CAKIANS  at  last  established  themselves, 
after  having  spread  terror  among  the  populations  border- 
ing on  the  Mediterranean.  Their  origin  is  unknown:  but 
their  customs  were  so  similar  -to  those  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Yucatan  at  the  time  even  of  the  Spanish  conquest — 
and  their  names  CAR,  Carib  or  Carians,  so  extensively 


77 

spread  over  the  western  continent,  that  we  might  well 
surmise,  that,  navigators  as  they  were,  they  came  from 
those  parts  of  the  world  ;  particularly  when  we  are  told 
by  the  Greek  poets  and  historians,  that  the  goddess 
MAIA  was  the  daughter  of  Atlantis.  We  have  seen 
that  the  names  of  the  khati,  those  of  their  cities,  that 
of  Tyre,  and  finally  that  of  Egypt,  have  their  etymology 
in  the  Maya. 

Considering  the  numerous  coincidences  already  pointed 
out,  and  many  more  I  could  bring  forth,  between  the 
attainments  and  customs  of  the  Mayas  and  the  Egyp- 
tians ;  in  view  also  of  the  fact  that  the  priests  and  learned 
men  of  Egypt  constantly  pointed  toward  the  WEST  as  the 
birthplace  of  their  ancestors,  it  would  seem  as  if  a  col- 
ony, starting  from  Mayab,  had  emigrated  Eastward, 
and  settled  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile;  just  as  the  Chinese 
to-day,  quitting  their  native  land  and  traveling  toward 
the  rising  sun,  establish  themselves  in  America. 

In  Egypt  again,  as  in  Hindostan,  we  find  the  history  of 
the  children  of  CAN,  preserved  among  the  secret  traditions 
treasured  up  by  the  priests  in  the  dark  recesses  of  their 
temples  :  the  same  story,  even  with  all  its  details.  It  is 
TYPHO  who  kills  his  brother  OSIRIS,  the  husband  of  their 
sister  Isis.  Some  of  the  names  only  have  been  changed 
when  the  members  of  the  royal  family  of  CAN,  the 
founder  of  the  cities  of  Mayab,  reaching  apotheosis,  were 
presented  to  the  people  as  gods,  to  be  worshiped. 

That  the  story  of  Isis  and  Osiris  is  a  mythical  account 
of  CHAACMOL  and  Moo,  from  all  the  circumstances  con- 
nected with  it,  according  to  the  relations  of  the  priests  of 
Egypt  that  tally  so  closely  with  what  we  learn  in  Chi- 
chen-Itza  from  the  bas-reliefs,  it  seems  impossible  to 
doubt. 

Effectively,  Osiris  and  Isis  are  considered  as  king  and 
queen  of  the  Amenti— the  region  of  the  West— the  man- 
sion of  the  dead,  of  the  ancestors.  Whatever  may  be  the 
etymology  of  the  name  of  Osiris,  it  is  &fact,  that  in  the 
sculptures  he  is  [often  represented  with  a  spotted  skin 


78 

suspended  near  him,  and  Diodorus  Siculns  says  :  "That 
"  the  skin  is  usually  represented  without  the  head ;  but 
"  some  instances  where  this  is  introduced  show  it  to  be 
1 '  the  leopard?  s  or  panther' s. ' '  Again,  the  name  of  Osiris 
as  king  of  the  West,  of  the  Amenti,  is  always  written, 
in  hieroglyphic  characters,  representing  a  crouching 
leopard'  with  an  eye  above  it.  It  is  also  well  known 
'that  the  priests  of  Osiris  wore  a  leopard  skin  as  their 
ceremonial  dress. 

Now,  Chaacmol  reigned  with  his  sister  Moo,  at  Chichen- 
Itza,  in  Mayab,  in  the  land  of  the  West  for  Egypt.  The 
name  Chaacmol  means,  in  Maya,  a  Spotted  tiger,  a 
leopard;  and  he  is  represented  as  such  in  all  his  totems 
in  the  sculptures  on  the  monuments ;  his  shield  being 
made  of  the  skin  of  leopard,  as  seen  in  the  mural 
paintings. 

Osiris,  in  Egypt,  is  a  myth.  Chaacmol,  in  Mayab,  a  re- 
ality. A  warrior  whose  mausoleum  I  have  opened;  whose 
weapons  and  ornaments  of  jade  are  in  Mrs.  Le  Plongeon's 
possession  ;  whose  heart  I  have  found,  and  sent  a  piece 
of  it  to  be  analysed  by  professor  Thompson  of  Worcester, 
Mass.;  whose  effigy,  with  his  name  inscribed  on  the  tablets 
occupying  the  place  of  the  ears,  forms  now  one  of  the 
most  precious  relics  in  the  National  Museum  of  Mexico. 

Isis  was  the  wife  and  sister  of  Osiris.  As  to  the  ety- 
mology of  her  name  the  Maya  affords  it  in  IOIN — the 
younger  sister.  As  Queen  of  the  Amenti,  of  the  West, 
she  also  is  represented  in  hieroglyphs  by  the  same  char- 
acters as  her  husband— a  leopard,  with  an  eye  above, 
and  the  sign  of  the  feminine  gender  an  oval  or  egg.  But 
as  a  goddess  she  is  always  portrayed  with  wings  ;  the 
vulture  being  dedicated  to  her;  and,  as  it  were,  her  totem. 

Moo  the  wife  and  sister  of  Chaacmol  was  the  Queen 
of  Chichen.  She  is  represented  on  the  Mausoleum  of 
Chaacmol  as  a  Macaw  (Moo  in  the  Maya  language);  also 
on  the  monuments  at  Uxmal:  and  the  chroniclers  tell  us 
that  she  was  worshiped  in  Izainal  under  the  name  of 
Kinich-Kdkmb ;  reading  from  right  to  left  the  fiery 
macaw  with  eyes  like  the  sun. 


79 

Their  protecting  spirit  is  a  Serpent,  the  totem  of  their 
father  CAN.  Another  Egyptian  divinity,  Apap  or  Apop, 
is  represented  under  the  form  of  a  gigantic  serpent 
covered  with  wounds.  Plutarch  in  his  treatise,  De 
Iside  et  Osiride,  tells  us  that  he  was  enemy  to  the  sun. 

TYPHO  was  the  brother  of  Osiris  and  Isis;  for  jealousy, 
and  to  usurp  the  throne,  he  formed  a  conspiration  and 
killed  his  brother.  He  is  said  to  represent  in  the  Egyp- 
tian mythology,  the  sea,  by  some;  by  others,  the  sun. 

AAK  (turtle)  was  also  the  brother  of  Chaacmol  and 
Mod.  For  jealousy,  and  to  usurp  the  throne,  he  killed 
his  brother  at  treason  with  three  thrusts  of  his  spear  in 
the  back.  Around  the  belt  of  his  statue  at  Uxmal  used 
to  be  seen  hanging  the  heads  of  his  brothers  CAY  and 
CHAACMOL,  together  with  that  of  Moo  ;  whilst  his  feet 
rested  on  their  flayed  bodies.  In  the  sculpture  he  is 
pictured  surrounded  by  the  Sun  as  his  protecting  spirit. 
The  escutcheon  of  Uxmal  shows  that  he  called  the  place 
he  governed  the  land  of  the  Sun.  In  the  bas-reliefs  of 
the  Queen's  chamber  at  Chichen  his  followers  are  seen 
to  render  homage  to  the  Sun ;  others,  the  friends  of 
Moo,  to  the  Serpent.  So,  in  Mayab  as  in  Egypt,  the  Sun 
and  Serpent  were  inimical.  In  Egypt  again  this  enmity 
was  a  myth,  in  Mayab  a  reality. 

ABOEKIS  was  the  brother  of  Osiris,  Isis  and  Typho. 
His  business  seems  to  have  been  that  of  a  peace-maker. 

CAY  was  also  the  brother  of  CTiaacmol,  Mod  and  Aac. 
He  was  the  high  pontiff,  and  sided  with  Chaacmol  and 
Moo  in  their  troubles,  as  we  learn  from  the  mural  paint- 
ings, from  his  head  and  flayed  body  serving  as  trophy 
to  Aac  as  I  have  just  said. 

In  June  last,  among  the  ruins  of  Uxmal,  I  discovered 
a  magnificent  bust  of  this  personage;  and  I  believe  I  know 
the  place  where  his  remains  are  concealed. 

NEPHTHIS  was  the  sister  of  Isis,  Osiris,  Typho,  and 
Aroeris,  and  the  wife  of  Typho;  but  being  in  love  with 
Osiris  she  managed  to  be  taken  to  his  embraces,  and  she 
became  pregnant.  That  intrigue  having  been  discovered 


80 

by  Isis,  she  adopted  the  child  that  Nephthis,  fearing  the 
anger  of  her  husband,  had  hidden,  brought  him  up  as  her 
own  under  the  name  of  Anubis.  Nephthis  was  also 
called  NIKE  by  some. 

NIC  or  NICTE  was -the  sister  of  CTiaacmol,  Mod,  Aac, 
and  Cay,  with  whose  name  I  find  always  her  name  as- 
sociated in  the  sculptures  on  the  monuments.  Here  the 
analogy  between  these  personages  would  seem  to  differ, 
still  further  study  of  the  inscriptions  may  yet  prove  the 
Egyptian  version  to  contain  some  truth.  Nic  or  Nicte 
means  flower  ;  a  cast  of  her  face,  with  a  flower  sculp- 
tured on  one  cheek,  exists  among  my  collections. 

We  are  told  that  three  children  were  born  to  Isis  and 
Osiris :  Horus,  Macedo,  and  Harpocrates.  Well,  in  the 
scene  painted  on  the  walls  of  Chaacmol's  funeral  cham- 
ber, in  which  the  body  of  this  warrior  is  represented 
stretched  on  the  ground,  cut  open  under  the  ribs  for  the 
extraction  of  the  heart  and  visceras,  he  is  seen  sur- 
rounded by  his  wife,  his  sister  Nic,  his  mother  Zoo,  and 
four  children. 

I  will  close  these  similes  by  mentioning  that  TTioth 
was  reputed  the  preceptor  of  Isis  ;  and  said  to  be  the 
inventor  of  letters,  of  the  art  of  reckoning,  geometry, 
astronomy,  and  is  represented  in  the  hieroglyphs  under 
the  form  of  a  baboon  (cynocephalus).  He  is  one  of  the 
most  ancient  divinities  among  the  Egyptians.  He  had 
also  the  office  of  scribe  in  the  lower  regions,  where  he  was 
engaged  in  noting  down  the  actions  of  the  dead,  and  pre- 
senting or  reading  them  to  Osiris.  One  of  the  modes  of 
writing  his  name  in  hieroglyphs,  transcribed  in  our 
common  letters,  reads  Nukta;  a  word  most  appro- 
priate and  suggestive  of  his  attributes,  since,  accord- 
ing to  the  Maya  language,  it  would  signify  to 
understand,  to  perceive,  Nuctah:  while  his  name 
Thoth,  maya  thot  means  to  scatter  flowers ;  hence 
knowledge.  In  the  temple  of  death  at  Uxmal,  at  the 
foot  of  the  grand  staircase  that  led  to  the  sanctuary, 
at  the  top  of  which  I  found  a  sacrificial  altar,  there  were 


81 

six  cynocephali  in  a  sitting  posture,  as  Thoth  is  repre- 
sented by  the  Egyptians.  They  were  placed  three  in  a 
row  each  side  of  the  stairs.  Between  them  was  a  plat- 
form where  a  skeleton,  in  a  kneeling  posture,  used  to  be. 
To-day  the  cynocephali  have  been  removed.  They  are  in 
one  of  the  yard  of  the  principal  house  at  the  Hacienda  of 
Uxmal.  The  statue  representing  the  kneeling  skele- 
ton lays,  much  defaced,  where  it  stood  when  that  ancient 
city  was  in  its  glory. 

In  the  mural  paintings  at  Chichen-Itza,  we  again  find  the 
baboon  (Cynocephalus)  warning  Moo  of  impending  danger. 
She  is  pictured  in  her  home,  which  is  situated  in  the  midst 
of  a  garden,  and  over  which  is  seen  the  royal  insignia.  A 
basket,  painted  blue,  full  of  bright  oranges,  is  symbolical 
of  her  domestic  happiness.  She  is  sitting  at  the  door. 
Before  her  is  an  individual  pictured  physically  deformed, 
to  show  the  ugliness  of  his  character  and  by  the  flatness 
of  his  skull,  want  of  moral  qualities,  (the  proving  that  the 
learned  men  of  Mayab  understood  phrenology).  He  is  in 
an  persuasive  attitude  ;  for  he  has  come  to  try  to  seduce 
her  in  the  name  of  another.  She  rejects  his  offer:  and,  with 
her  extended  hand,  protects  the  armadillo,  on  whose  shell 
the  high  priest  read  her  destiny  when  yet  a  child.  In  a 
tree,  just  above  the  head  of  the  man,  is  an  ape.  His  hand 
is  open  and  outstretched,  both  in  a  warning  and  threat- 
ening position.  A  serpent  (can\  her  protecting  spirit,  is 
seen  at  a  short  distance  coiled,  ready  to  spring  in  her  de- 
fense. Near  by  is  another  serpent,  entwined  round  the 
trunk  of  a  tree.  He  has  wounded  about  the  head  another 
animal,  that,  with  its  mouth  open,  its  tongue  protruding, 
looks  at  its  enemy  over  its  shoulder.  Blood  is  seen 
oozing  from  its  tongue  and  face.  This  picture  forcibly 
recalls  to  the  mind  the  myth  of  the  garden  of  Eden.  For 
here  we  have  the  garden,  the  fruit,  the  woman,  the 
tempter. 

As  to  the  charmed  leopard  skin  worn  by  the  African 
warriors  to  render  them  invulnerable  to  spears,  it  would 
seem  as  if  the  manner  in  which  Chaacmol  met  his 


82 

death,  by  being  stabbed  with  a  spear,  had  been  known 
to  their  ancestors ;  and  that  they,  in  their  superstitious 
fancies,  had  imagined  that  by  wearing  his  totem,  it  would 
save  them  from  being  wounded  with  the  same  kind  of 
weapon  used  in  killing  him.  Let  us  not  laugh  at  such 
a  singular  conceit  among  uncivilized  tribes,  for  it  still  pre- 
vails in  Europe.  On  many  of  the  French  and  German 
soldiers,  killed  during  the  last  German  war,  were  found 
talismans  composed  of  strips  of  paper,  parchment  or 
cloth,  on  which  were  written  supposed  cabalistic  words 
or  the  name  of  some  saint,  that  the  wearer  firmly  believed 
to  be  possessed  of  the  power  of  making  him  invulnerable. 

I  am  acquainted  with  many  people — and  not  ignorant— 
who  believe  that  by  wearing  on  their  persons  rosaries, 
made  in  Jerusalem  and  blessed  by  the  Pope,  they  enjoy 
immunity  from  thunderbolts,  plagues,  epidemics  and 
other  misfortunes  to  which  human  fiesh  is  heir. 

That  the  Mayas  were  a  race  autochthon  on  this  western 
continent  and  did  not  receive  their  civilization  from  Asia 
or  Africa,  seems  a  rational  conclusion,  to  be  deduced 
from  the  foregoing  FACTS.  If  we  had  nothing  but  their 
name  to  prove  it,  it  should  be  sufficient,  since  its  etymol- 
ogy is  only  to  be  found  in  the  American  Maya  language. 

They  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  natives  of  HindostaUj 
since  we  are  told  that,  in  very  remote  ages,  Maya,  a 
prince  of  the  Davanas,  established  himself  there.  We 
do  not  find  the  etymology  of  his  name  in  any  book 
where  mention  is  made  of  it.  We  are  merely  told  that 
he  was  a  wise  magician,  a  great  architect,  a  learned  as- 
tronomer, a  powerful  Asoura  (demon),  thirsting  for  bat- 
tles and  bloodshed:  or,  according  to  the  Sanscrit,  a  God- 
dess, the  mother  of  all  beings  that  exist — gods  and  men. 

Very  little  is  known  of  the  Mayas  of  Afghanistan,  ex- 
cept that  they  call  themselves  Mayas,  and  that  the 
names  of  their  tribes  and  cities  are  words  belonging  to 
the  American  Maya  language. 

Who  can  give  the  etymology  of  the  name  Magi,  the 
learned  men  amongst  the  Chaldees.  We  only  know 


83 

that  its  meaning  is  the  same  as  Maya  in  Hindostan : 
magician,  astronomer,  learned  man.  If  we  come  to 
Greece,  where  we  find  again  the  name  Maia,  it  is  men- 
tioned as  that  of  a  goddess,  as  in  Hindostan,  the  mother 
of  the  gods  :  only  we  are  told  that  she  was  the  daughter 
of  Atlantis — born  of  Atlantis.  But  if  we  come  to  the 
lands  beyond  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  then  we 
find  a  country  called  MAYAB,  on  account  of  the  porosity 
of  its  soil;  that,  as  a  sieve  (Mayab),  absorbs  the  water  in 
an  incredibly  short  time.  Its  inhabitants  took  its  name 
from  that  of  the  country,  and  called  themselves  Mayas. 
It  is  a  fact  worthy  of  notice,  that  in  their  hieroglyphic 
writings  the  sign  employed  by  the  Egyptians  to  signify 
a  Lord,  a  Master,  was  the  image  of  a  sieve.  Would  not 
this  seem  to  indicate  that  the  western  invaders  who  sub- 
dued the  primitive  inhabitants  of  the  valley  of  the  Nile, 
and  became  the  lords  and  masters  of  the  land,  were  peo- 
ple from  MAYAB;  particularly  if  we  consider  that  the 
usual  character  used  to  write  the  name  of  Egypt  was  the 
sieve,  together  with  the  sign  of  land  ? 

We  know  that  the  Mayas  deified  and  paid  divine 
honors  to  their  eminent  men  a-nd  women  after 
their  death.  This  worship  of  their  heroes  they  un- 
doubtedly carried,  with  other  customs,  to  the  countries 
where  they  emigrated;  and,  in  due  course  of  time,  estab- 
lished it  among  their  inhabitants,  who  came  to  forget  that 
MAYAB  was  a  locality,  converted  it  into  a  personalty:  and 
as  some  of  their  gods  came  from  it,  Maya  was  consid- 
ered as  the  Mother  of  the  Gods,  as  we  see  in  Hindostan 
and  Greece. 

It  would  seem  probable  that  the  Mayas  did  not  receive 
their  civilization  from  the  inhabitants  of  the  Asiatic  pe- 
ninsulas, for  the  religious  lores  and  customs  they  have  in 
common  are  too  few  to  justify  this  assertion.  They 
would  simply  tend  to  prove  that  relations  had  existed 
between  them  at  some  epoch  or  other ;  and  had  inter- 
changed some  of  their  habits  and  beliefs  as  it  happens, 
between  the  civilized  nations  of  our  days.  This  appears 


84 

to  be  the  true  side  of  the  question;  for  in  the  figures 
sculptured  on  the  obelisks  of  Copan  the  Asiatic  type  is 
plainly  discernible;  whilst  the  features  of  the  statues 
that  adorn  the  celebrated  temples  of  Hindostan  are,  be- 
yond all  doubts,  American. 

The  FACTS  gathered  from  the  monuments  do  not  sus- 
tain the  theory  advanced  by  .many,  that  the  inhabitants 
7)f  tropical  America  received  their  civilization  from  Egypt 
and  Asia  Minor.  On  the  contrary.  It  is  true  that  I  have 
shown  that  many  of  the  customs  and  attainments  of  the 
Egyptians  were  identical  to  those  of  the  Mayas  ;  but 
these  had  many  religious  rites  and  habits  unknown  to 
the  Egyptians;  who,  as  we  know,  always  pointed  towards 
the  West  as  the  birthplaces  of  their  ancestors,  and  wor- 
shiped as  gods  and  goddesses  personages  who  had  lived, 
and  whose  remains  are  still  in  MAYAB.  Besides,  the 
monuments  themselves  prove  the  respective  antiquity  of 
the  two  nations. 

According  to  the  best  authorities  the  most  ancient 
monuments  raised  by  the  Egyptians  do  not  date  further 
back  than  about  2,500  years  B.  C.  Well,  in  Ake,  a  city 
about  twenty-five  miles  from  Merida,  there  exists  still 
a  monument  sustaining  thirty-six  columns  of  Tcatuns. 
Each  of  these  columns  indicate  a  lapse  of  one  hundred 
and  sixty  years  in  the  life  of  the  nation.  They  then 
would  show  that  5,760  years  has  intervened  between  the 
time  when  the  first  stone  was  placed  on  the  east  corner 
of  the  uppermost  of  the  three  immense  superposed  plat- 
forms that  compose  the  structure,  and  the  placing  of  the 
last  capping  stone  on  the  top  of  the  thirty-sixth  column. 
How  long  did  that  event  occur  before  the  Spanish  con- 
quest it  is  impossible  to  surmise.  Supposing,  however, 
it  did  take  place  at  that  time  ;  this  would  give  us  a  lapse 
of  at  least  6,100  years  since,  among  the  rejoicings  of  the 
people  this  sacred  monument  being  finished,  the  first 
stone  that  was  to  serve  as  recprd  of  the  age  of  the  nation, 
was  laid  by  the  high  priest,  where  we  see  it  to-day.  I 
will  remark  that  the  name  AKE  is  one  of  the  Egyptians' 


85 

divinities,  the  third  person  of  the  triad  of  Esneh;  always 
represented  as  a  child,  holding  his  linger  to  his  mouth. 
AKE  also  means  a  reed.  To-day  the  meaning  of  the 
word  is  lost  in  Yucatan. 

Cogolludo,  in  his  history  of  Yucatan,  speaking  of  the 
manner  in  which  they  computed  time,  says  : 

uThey  counted  their  ages  and  eras,  which  they  in- 
"  scribed  in  their  books  every  twenty  years,  in  lustrums 
"  of  four  years.  *  *  *  When  five  of  these  lustrums 
"  were  completed,  they  called  the  lapse  of  twenty  years 
u  Tcatun,  which  means  to  place  a  stone  down  upon  an- 
"  other.  *  *  *  In  certain  sacred  buildings  and  in 
"  the  houses  of  the  priests  every  twenty  years  they 
"  place  a  hewn  stone  upon  those  already  there.  When 
"  seven  of  these  stones  have  thus  been  piled  one  over  the. 
"  other  began  the  ATiau  katun.  Then  after  the  first  lus- 
"  trum  of  four  years  they  placed  a  small  stone  on  the 
"  top  of  the  big  one,  commencing  at  the  east  corner;  then 
u  after  four  years  more  they  placed  another  small  stone 
"  on  the  west  corner  ;  then  the  next  at  the  north;  and 
"  the  fourth  at  the  south.  .  At  the  end  of  the  twenty 
u  years  they  put  a  big  stone  on  the  top  of  the  small  ones: 
"  and  the  column,  thus  finished,  indicated  a  lapse  of  one 
u  hundred  and  sixty  years." 

There  are  other  methods  for  determining  the  approxi- 
mate age  of  the  monuments  of  Mayab  : 

1st.  By  means  of  their  actual  orientation;  starting  from 
the  fact  that  their  builders  always  placed  either  the  faces 
or  angles  of  the  edifices  fronting  the  cardinal  points. 

2d.  By  determining  the  epoch  when  the  mastodon  be- 
came extinct.  For,  since  Can  or  his  ancestors  adopted 
the  head  of  that  animal  as  symbol  of  deity,  it  is  evident 
they  must  have  known  it ;  hence,  must  have  been  con- 
temporary with  it. 

3d.  By  determining  when,  through  some  great  cata- 
clysm, the  lands  became  separated,  and  all  communica- 
tions between  the  inhabitants  of  Maydb  and  their  colo- 
nies were  consequently  interrupted.  If  we  are  to  credit 


86 

what  Psenophis  and  Sonchis,  priests  of  Heliopolis  and 
Sais,  said  to  Solon  "that  nine  thousand  years  before,  the 
visit  to  them  of  the  Athenian  legislator,  in  consequence 
of  great  earthquakes  and  inundations,  the  lands  of  the 
West  disappeared  in  one  day  and  a  fatal  night,"  then  we 
may  be  able  to  form  an  idea  of  the  antiquity  of  the  ruined 
cities  of  America  and  their  builders. 

Reader,  I  have  brought  before  you,  without  comments, 
some  of  the  FACTS,  that  after  ten  years  of  research,  the 
paintings  on  the  walls  of  CJiaacmol ]s  funeral  chamber, 
the  sculptured  inscriptions  carved  on  the  stones  of  the 
crumbling  monuments  of  Yucatan,  and  a  comparative 
study  of  the  vernacular  of  the  aborigines  of  that  country, 
have  revealed  to  us.  I  have  no  theory  to  offer.  Many 
years  of  further  patient  investigations,  the  full  interpre- 
tation of  the  monumental  inscriptions,  and,  above  all,  the 
possession  of  the  libraries  of  the  learned  men  of  Mayab, 
are  the  sine  qua  non  to  form  an  uncontrovertible  one, 
free  from  the  speculations  which  invalidate  all  books 
published  on  the  subject  heretofore. 

If  by  reading  these  pages  you  have  learned  something 
new,  your  time  has  not  been  lost ;  nor  mine  in  writing 
them. 


